


Esprit D’Escalier

by GremlinSR



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: BAMF Nara Shikamaru, Fluff, Gen, Hokage Uzumaki Naruto, Kidnapping, Mention of Attempted Non-con but it's pretty light, Mentor Nara Shikamaru, One Shot, shikamaru-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 01:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13423854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GremlinSR/pseuds/GremlinSR
Summary: Shikamaru gets an apprentice. It's a total drag.





	Esprit D’Escalier

The ground was rumbling beneath Shikamaru, rippling across his back and jostling his body, which didn't seem to want to respond to his commands. His limbs were heavy and his head was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He forced his eyes open, grimacing when the bright light caused a lance of pain to go through his head, and made a small noise of protest.

The ground stopped rocking and he was immediately thankful for the cessation of movement. He squinted his eyes but forced them to remain open while he tried to put his thoughts in order. It wasn't very often his mind struggled to obey him, but whatever happened that landed him in this state must have been rough. A shape blocked out the light and he relaxed when the brightness stopped stabbing incessantly at his eyes. 

"Nara-sama!" a low voice said. "Please try to keep it down. We're still being pursued." 

His brow furrowed. Pursued? By whom? Before he could say anything, something was being pressed to his lips.

"Here. It should help with your headache," the voice said and as soon as the liquid hit his mouth he realized just how thirsty he was.

He would have gladly gulped the water down but was relegated instead to slow sips by the person holding the bottle. Only after it was taken away did he realize it had an odd herb-like aftertaste.

"What was -" he rasped, alarmed and kicking himself for accepting water from a stranger.

A gentle hand on his shoulder and frantic shushing followed his outburst. "Sound travels over the sand too easily, please be quiet Nara-sama. It's just a mixture to help with pain. My mother's an herbalist."

He calmed at that - the pain had faded to a dull roar after drinking the mixture and his vision was clearing.

"Who..." he croaked as two dark green eyes set in a dirty and bruised face came into view.

He relaxed at the Konoha headband prominently displayed on her forehead, though her light brown hair was a veritable disaster, falling out of its ponytail and sticking to the sweat on her sunburned face.

"My name is Takahani Kozue. I'm a genin of Konohagakure. Please, Nara-sama, I'm sorry but we're being pursued. I'll explain everything once I get us to safety."

Before he could ask anything more she darted away from his side. He noticed belatedly that he was lying in what was once a canvas tent that had been turned into a sling. The girl, Kozue, picked up the long end at his feet and pulled it over one shoulder, grasping it with both hands. She took a deep breath and dug her feet into the sand - which they were surrounded by - and strained forward.

With a jolt, his makeshift cot began to move and he stared in shock as the girl - who wasn't tiny but wasn't exactly large considering how young she was - proceeded to drag his body across the desert. So it hadn't been the ground moving after all - he'd been feeling himself move across the sand instead. A glance behind him showed a long, meandering line where she'd pulled him across the dunes. A pretty glaring sign of where they'd been.

As if sensing his thoughts Kozue said in a strained tone, "I've been putting a genjutsu over it as we go."

He narrowed his eyes at her, taking in her shaking legs and hard breathing.

As the pain continued to fade, his memories began to return. Naruto had sent him to lead a diplomatic mission in Sand to assist in repairing damages done to multiple Wind Country villages caused by a massive sandstorm. Temari had traveled with him, along with Shikadai's team, three other chunin, and three four-person cells from the Genin Corps to do the grunt work.

He assumed Kozue was one of the genin, since he'd met all of the chunin more than once. Though it was odd that he couldn't remember seeing her at all through the entirety of the mission.

His limbs were beginning to regain feeling, though the pain radiating from his left leg had him glancing down. He took in the thick bandages around his upper thigh dispassionately while details started coming faster to him. They'd completed the mission, Temari and Shikadai's team had continued on to Suna to visit his uncles and give the report, and Shikamaru had headed back with the genin and three remaining chunin guards.

They'd been attacked by rogue nin, and...hmm. He'd ordered the rest of his party to run while he held them back, knowing that the genin would be nothing but cannon fodder. He'd fully expected to die at the end of it all when he'd been set upon by eleven high-level shinobi. Then there'd been an explosion and...nothing.

They continued on for awhile and he couldn't help but notice the way she kept looking over her shoulder nervously. He wanted to ask how they'd escaped and where the others were, but he could see she was flagging and didn't want to take any more of her energy. Not to mention he kept fading in and out of consciousness.

He continued to wrack his brain for information on his current situation. Their attackers had been a fairly large group of chunin and jounin, mostly wind users, so probably native to Wind Country, but certainly not from Sand Village. So, a rebel group of shinobi whose goal had obviously been to either kill or capture Shikamaru. From what he could remember, they had succeeded. So how had he ended up in this position?

Finally, they came over a rise and Kozue paused and stared down at something he couldn't see from his prone position. The sun was starting to go down and her standard-issue blue long-sleeved shirt was soaked in sweat.

He struggled into a sitting position, ignoring the dizziness that it caused, and followed her gaze. On the other side of the dune they'd just topped, tucked between two of the rolling hills, was what looked like an animal graveyard. Bleached white bones, half buried in the sand, were scattered throughout the area.

"Sink pits," they both said at once.

Wind Country was known for its harsh environment and every shinobi was briefed on a feature that was considered just as deadly as the sandstorms. Whole swathes of ground that would suck you in and under the sand if you weren't careful. The telltale bones of animals and people that had gotten stuck and then died before being picked clean was the best way to identify them. Between that and the scorpions, most people stepped lightly in Wind Country.

Shikamaru had to lay back down when his vision swam from his small movement and exclamation, and when he next opened his eyes, it was dark out. 

 _Shit, I lost consciousness,_ he thought and glanced around, raising his eyebrows when he saw they were sitting next to a fire and he was staring up at a star-studded sky.

"Kozue-san," he croaked and she was there with the herbal water, slowly pouring it into his mouth.

He allowed her to feed him a few sips before he lifted a shaking hand to stop her, studying her face. He noted absently that she had freckles on her nose, which was upturned in a way that gave her an innocent cast to her fairly average features.

"How are we on supplies?" he asked and she straightened automatically at his authoritative tone.

"This is the last of our water." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "We have a few ration bars I snagged on our way out of the enemy camp."

"Hmm. How much water have you had?" She gave him a blank look and he raised an eyebrow.

"A bit," she finally said, looking to the side.

"A bit like - a quarter of it?" he pushed.

"Yes," she said, a little too quickly.

"It's okay if you've had more than that," he said gently and she sent him an affronted look.

"I see. So you haven't been drinking at all. Take a few sips, you look terrible."

"But, sir, you need it more. You lost a lot of blood."

"And you've been dragging my body all across the desert," he said dryly, "not to mention you've got a few injuries of your own. Also, if we're being pursued, why did you light a fire?"

The warmth was nice against the coolness of the night, but it was an incredibly stupid thing to do - an academy student would know better. To his surprise, she just smirked. "I  _want_ them to find us."

"Explain," he snapped.

"The sink pits. I covered up the bones with sand and put us up against a rock wall on one side and a dune on the other. They'll try to sneak up on us from the opposite side of the dune and get caught in the pits."

He stared at her and she bit her lip, unsure. "Is that...wrong?" she finally asked in a small voice.

"No," he rasped. "It's a good plan. Now drink and then tell me how we ended up in the middle of the desert running from this group."

Kozue pursed her lips but lifted the water to her mouth. For some reason, she seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't place her. After a very tiny drink, she brought it back to his mouth. He went to turn away, but she widened her eyes at him, expression pleading.

"P-please Nara-sama, I don't want to be all alone again. If you don't replenish your fluids, you'll lose consciousness."

He gave her an unimpressed look at her attempt at manipulation. Again, she surprised him when she grinned and he couldn't help but quirk his lip up at her. She was cute.

"Alright, fine. We'll save it for later," she said and set it aside. "As for how we got here...everybody else ended up getting away like you planned, but I was captured."

"And how did that happen? I thought I told you to run and they didn't seem interested in anybody but me."

She looked down, uncomfortable.

"Kozue-san,  _report,"_ he snapped, out of patience - he'd never met such a reticent soldier from the genin corps before. Generally, they were low-level nin who jumped when the higher ranks said to.

She twitched and her head whipped up to glare at him. "The leader thought I was  _pretty,_ okay?" she snapped and looked to the side. He took in the way her fists were clenched at her side and her bruised face.

"Did they..." he started gently. He hated to ask, but he had to know the extent of her injuries.

Her tone was clipped when she answered. "No. The leader had them throw me in his tent to save me for later."

He hummed, unsure if he believed that it had really been that simple. Just the threat of rape at her age and rank would be difficult to handle emotionally, but he let it go for the moment.

"Okay, and where was I this whole time?"

"Tied up to a pole in the middle of camp unconscious. I was tied up in the leader's tent like I said, so I heard them when they decided they needed to go out and try to confuse their trails for any rescue teams. They left two people to watch us. I was able to untie myself and render the guards...incapable of fighting."

She cleared her throat and purposely didn't meet his gaze. "I untied you, grabbed a tent that hadn't been pitched to use as a sling for you and whatever supplies were close and took off. I was able to grab a pouch with four kunai, six explosive tags, two rolls of ninja wire, a bottle of water, six ration bars and a few munitions.

”I used two explosive tags and half a roll of ninja wire to set up a trap to cover our retreat. I also set up a few traps around the sinking pit to hopefully force them into the danger zone, using up the rest of the explosives."

"You incapacitated two ninja of at least chunin level." His tone was flat, and she shrugged.

"I took them by surprise," she said lightly, then reached into the pouch at her hip and pulled out a ration bar, fumbling with the wrapper.

"Okay. Then you dragged me across the desert, laying traps and covering our tracks with genjutsu."

He accepted a piece of ration bar from her when she held it out, taking a small bite after he managed to sit up the rest of the way and lean against the boulders behind him. She leaned over to check the bandage on his leg and that was when he struck. He reached into her pouch, pulled out a kunai, and flipped her onto her stomach, leaning over her and pressing the sharp edge to her throat.

"Okay, now why don't you tell me who you really are." There was no way somebody in the genin corps could accomplish everything she'd claimed to do. Maybe a genin on the jounin track, but not one of Konoha's glorified go-fors.

She took in a gasping breath of air but didn't struggle. 

"I - I told you! I'm Takahani Kozue, part of the genin corps! I've been in your unit for the past two weeks!"

"Then why haven't I seen you?" She stilled and he studied her profile. Was she...pouting?

"Well, I mean, I've been around. Building and cleaning and such."

He pressed the kunai more firmly against her throat and she yelped.

"I've been avoiding you!"

"Why?" he growled and she pressed her lips together. "Is it because you're a plant?"

"Because we've met before," she mumbled.

He frowned. He couldn't deny she seemed familiar..."Where?"

"I was in the academy," she finally said, defeated. "I -" she was cut off by the sound of an explosion and yelling.

Shikamaru jerked in surprise, causing the edge of his weapon to dig into her neck hard enough to draw blood. Kozue winced, then craned her head to look up at him, fear showing clearly in her gaze for the first time.

“I have a plan to get us out of here, but we have to move." He glared down at her, mind racing. "Please! If they find us they'll..."

Another explosion and then curses sounded across the sand. "Goddamn sink pits. It'll take an hour to get out of here," somebody yelled.

With a sigh, Shikamaru sat back and eyed the girl warily while she raced to shove the water bottle and the half of the ration bar she'd dropped on the ground when he attacked her into her pouch. Then, with gentle hands and a wavering smile when he hissed in pain, she helped him back into his sling.

He stayed sitting up halfway despite the pain radiating through his body - especially his bandaged leg - and the fatigue rolling through him. He must have lost more blood than he originally thought. Not mention what felt like some cracked ribs and various other bruises and...a burn on his side?

She hastily kicked sand over their fire before she braced herself and started to pull him along, the sound of canvas rasping against sand filling the air. They came around the boulder and he blinked when he saw a familiar-looking drag mark going off into the distance.

"I made that earlier while you were sleeping," she muttered, putting down the end of the canvas and ignoring the ruckus the shinobi stuck in the sink pit were making on the other side of the dunes. She then made a hand sign and he watched as her brow furrowed and sweat beaded on her forehead. When she lowered her hands, which were shaking, there were four track marks moving through the sand minus the false trail she'd created earlier.

"Hopefully they're smart enough to have figured out the genjutsu I was using earlier and will dispel this one, then follow the other trail I left without looking too closely," she whispered, then leaned down, put her arms under him, and with what he assumed was a judicious use of chakra, picked him up.

_A false trail hidden in a real trail and then she'll carry me for as long as she can, probably feeding enough chakra into her feet to not leave much of a sign of her passing in our true direction. Clever, though who knows how long she'll be able to haul me around with our size difference._

It was awkward for her, trying to keep his appendages and the trailing tent off the ground. Luckily, Shikamaru didn't have to live through the indignity of being carried bridal style while injured by a fourteen-year-old girl whose head only came up to his shoulders. The jostling to his leg, which he was beginning to suspect was very, very injured, caused him to pass out.

The moment he woke up, somebody was pressing something against his lips. Recognizing the feeling of cool water against them, he gulped it down. It was hot out again and there was a howling noise and stinging sensation on his cheeks that was annoying, to say the least.

After a few moments, the sweet liquid stopped flowing from the water bottle and he sighed and opened his eyes. This time, there hadn't been many delays in his memories catching up to him.

He was stranded in a desert with a frankly suspicious genin who was smarter than somebody in her station really should be, if what she was saying was true, and she'd used his half-awake state to give him the rest of their water instead of taking some of it for herself.

Oh, and they were stuck in a minor sandstorm. It just kept getting better. Her eyes, which looked black instead of green in the low lighting, met his own. Her face was dirtier than it had been last time he'd seen her, though she'd pulled her hair back more securely despite the knots clumped with sand that were visible.

"Hey," she croaked.

Her whole body was trembling slightly in what he assumed was exhaustion and chakra depletion. He was relieved to see he was back in his sling instead of being carried in her arms.

"I think...I think we lost them. This sandstorm is annoying, but it's mild and should cover up our tracks." She glanced down at his leg and bit her lip. "How does that feel?"

He raised an eyebrow at her in an expression that usually made people cringe and wonder why they'd ever asked such a stupid question. Kozue just huffed out a laugh and shrugged. "Stupid question, I know. You were cut pretty badly there. Luckily they must have really wanted you alive because they bandaged it up and I heard them say they rubbed something on it to stop the bleeding."

"While you were in the leader's tent," he said blandly and her face tightened.

"Yeah," she said shortly.

Obviously, this was a sensitive subject. He grunted in reply and closed his eyes.

"You should rest," he said as he heard her move to stand. "You're almost useless as you are. If they catch up to us -"

"I'd be useless anyway," she said and he opened his eyes just as she removed her dirty sweat-stained shirt, leaving her in a see-through mesh undershirt with a sports bra beneath. She wrapped it around her head until only her eyes were showing, then leaned over him and fussed with the edges of his sling until his face was protected from the flying sand while leaving him some range of vision.

"I'm not much of a fighter," she finally said, voice muffled behind her makeshift wrap. "It's better if we can just avoid them. Also, we're out of water. If I stop to rest, we'll never make it to the Land of Rivers before we die of dehydration."

 _Cheerful little thing,_ he thought to himself, but couldn't actually argue the point with her.

He knew of ways to find water in the desert after being married to Temari for fifteen years, of course, he did. But they all involved various plant and animal life that just weren't in abundance in this section of the country. Apparently, his survival depended on a thin girl who couldn't fight.

"How far are we from the border?" he yelled over the wind, then wished he hadn't when it made his head throb. Damn, he was already thirsty. The only good thing to ever come out of a desert was his wife. And yes, he realized that he had left out his crazy brothers-in-law in that statement.

"Ten hours."

He sighed and closed his eyes. Maybe they'd run into a Suna border patrol on their way. Not likely - they generally relied on the desert to be enough of a barrier to large forces on this side of their country. He couldn't imagine why.

"Troublesome," he muttered.

It didn't seem very likely that Kozue would actually be able to continue dragging him for that long. She was already exhausted and he had a feeling that the only water she'd had for a long time was what he had forced her to drink at camp.

Well, his leg was obviously fucked and he was suffering from blood loss and probably heat stroke, but if he rested, he'd probably be able to find a way to drag them the rest of the way out of this hellhole if she passed out.

Shikamaru had barely finished this thought before his eyes drooped shut. He remembered what she had said about the herbs in the water bottle and realized that whatever they were made him extremely drowsy. Which probably meant she had faked drinking water earlier...dammit, what a sneaky little...

The next time he woke, he couldn't be sure he was awake. Somebody was speaking to him, but it was hard to understand past the immense pain radiating from his leg and the hot, hazy feeling of the world around him.

"...Almost there, Nara-sama. Just hang on, okay? Please..." He drifted back out of consciousness.

He woke up a few other times, at first to the heat and smell of sand and then later to the feeling of something cool on his forehead, the smell of water - and why did that make him want to cry in happiness? - and what sounded like soft singing. His body still felt overly feverish and achy, but it was less severe this time.

"Temari...?" his brow furrowed in confusion.

Temari never sang. The voice stopped abruptly and then something was being placed at his mouth. Water. He took a drink and then remembered. Hadn't somebody drugged him? He turned his face away and mumbled something, but a soft hand on his cheek and an urgent voice finally convinced him to accept it.

His body needed it, either way. And if this person  _was_ drugging him - well. They'd regret it later. The water came in small trickles, forcing him to drink slowly. It soothed his sore throat and after awhile he drifted back to sleep.

He came into half-wakefulness a few more times, but it was blurry. Once, it was to cool water trickling over him, which was nice. Another time, it was to intense pain as somebody did  _something_ to his injured leg.

Reflexively, he grabbed his chakra, which was now at least slightly accessible, and sent his shadows haphazardly towards the threat. He was rewarded with a small  _oomph_ and the sound of something hitting flesh. A moment later, the thud of somebody hitting the ground and wheezing.

"Aa...Nara-sama, that was mean," a strained voice scolded, but he had exhausted himself with the jutsu and the world went dark around him again.

When he woke up the next time his head was clearer and though he was still in pain it wasn't the sharp, feverish kind that he recognized, in retrospect, had meant that his body was failing him. His bed was swaying gently and there was a warm weight against his side. The sound of moving water could be heard to his right and the sunlight on his face was mild. He blinked open his eyes and took stock of his situation.

So, they had made it to the Land of Rivers. He was in his tent-turned-sling, but now it was strung high up in the air between two trees with ninja wire, creating a makeshift hammock. The world around them was green and calm and pleasant.

He was much cleaner than he had been before, even if he now smelled like river water. Even his pants and long-sleeved shirt had been washed, which meant at some point he'd been stripped and cleaned while unconscious by the girl now curled up next to him sleeping peacefully.

The thought would have made a civilian or newly minted genin uncomfortable, but body shyness isn't something that's easy to hold onto when you go on a lot of high ranking missions. Ino and Chouji had seen Shikamaru naked too many times to count and vice versa, and it was almost always in life-threatening or post-life threatening situations that sucked any eroticism right out of it. The other times it had happened were mostly too embarrassing to even think about.

Kozue looked cleaner, too, though her mousy hair was still hopelessly tangled and the bruises on her face had turned a disturbing mix of dark purple and yellow. There were deep circles under her eyes, stark against the pale skin of her face.

She had a piece of what had probably been her shirt wrapped around her arm as a makeshift bandage that he didn't remember being there before. A thin scab on her neck from his kunai was the only other injury he saw on her outside of some bruises on her arms beneath her mesh under armor. The rest of her overshirt shirt seemed to have made it onto his thigh.

She looked young, with one hand curled up next to her face, and Shikamaru mourned the fact that he and Temari had never had a daughter. And then he remembered how troublesome women were and dismissed his thoughts. Speaking of troublesome, he needed to use the bathroom, but curled up against him the way she was, there was no way Kozue wouldn't wake if he moved. Which was probably the point.

He pursed his lips. She was exhausted. He was sure that he had vague memories of her taking care of him during what was probably a fever - infection? That sounded right, the way his leg was aching, almost like it'd been reopened. Which meant...his eyes drifted to the injury on her arm. Had he done that?

Yet here she was, curled up next to him, trusting him not to lose control again. Now he couldn't figure out if she was simply stupid with a large helping of stubborn - after all, he knew from working with his Hokage that stubborn could get you pretty far - or clever and just incredibly naive.

Either that or she really was a plant and was playing him. If so, she was dedicated. Hauling him across Wind Country and then bringing down his fever had been no easy feat. Either way, she had pushed herself to her limits the past few days, he was sure, so he gritted his teeth and stared up past the leaves into the sky instead of attempting to move.

Temari was probably freaking out right about now. He imagined her stomping around, terrorizing her brothers while they scrambled to put together search parties. Knowing her, the Kazekage himself was wandering the desert right now, face impassive even as he frantically tried to prevent an explosion of temper from his sister.

His thoughts shied away from Shikadai. His son was most likely not handling the situation well, as he'd never been in a position where one of his loved ones was missing - possibly dead. He knew he was most likely being just as much of a pain as his mother, whom he'd inherited a sometimes harsh attitude from. Pushing thoughts of his family away - they were making his chest ache - he decided there was just no more putting a bathroom break off.

Slowly, he shifted away from Kozue, hoping she was tired enough to sleep through it. Instead, her breath hitched and her eyes flew open. She sat up in a crouch, making their hammock sway dangerously, and he noted the kunai in her hand.

After a moment she realized what had woken her and she put the weapon away and leaned towards him, brow furrowed while she studied his eyes. He raised his eyebrows at her and she slumped back in relief.

"Thank goodness, your fever seems to have stayed lifted." He forced himself not to flinch when she brought the back of her hand to his forehead.

"How do you feel?" she asked around a yawn.

"I'm fine. You should go back to sleep, I'll keep watch," he said, awkwardly swinging his legs over the side of the canvas.

"Where are you going?" she yelped and fisted her hand in his shirt. "You're still healing! Yesterday you were leaking puss everywhere -" she ignored his cringe and kept talking "-you shouldn't be trying to walk yet!"

Slowly, he turned so that she could see just how unimpressed he was with a genin giving him orders. She let go of his shirt and lowered her hand into her lap, dropping her gaze.

There was an awkward silence, and then he allowed himself to drop to the ground. Even using chakra to cushion his landing, it  _hurt,_ and it was only his pride and the fact that he'd had much, much worse that kept him from flinching. A glance up showed a concerned face peeking over the edge of the hammock. It disappeared with a squeak when she saw him watching and he sighed before limping off to relieve himself.

When he came back, she was starting a fire and there was a dead rabbit next to her. He gave it a pointed look and she shrugged and looked away. "I set up some traps before I fell asleep."

Shikamaru rubbed his forehead at her timidness - he'd scared her earlier. He moved to sit next to her on a low boulder, then picked up the hare and held out a hand towards her. Kozue gave him a kunai handle first, then went back to encouraging the semi-damp wood into catching flame.

"I think, Kozue-san," he said once she had the fire going, "that you should give me your full report now. Just assume I don't remember anything about the attack or what you told me during our escape."

She bit her lip and grabbed one of the long, straight sticks she had gathered at some point and pulled it towards her. She then took out another kunai and began methodically stripping the bark from it.

"We were attacked early in the morning on our second day of travel. We had just begun to wake and were taken by surprise. I think...they must have taken out the sentries since I didn't see them in the group later."

He nodded - this was what he remembered, as well.

"You told the chunin who was still...alive that you would hold them back and to get the genin clear. You ordered us to run when somebody tried to argue with you."

Shikamaru hummed to let her know he was still listening while he began to skin the rabbit with efficient motions despite his still-lingering fatigue and pain.

"We listened, but I think there must have been too many because some of them moved to pursue and you couldn't stop them. I had my pack because I'd already picked it up before they attacked.

“I was carrying some of the leftover munitions that we had brought to bring down buildings that were too damaged to repair. I'm pretty good with traps -"  _understatement,_ Shikamaru thought to himself in some amusement, remembering the annoyed yelling of the shinobi that had fallen into the sink pits, "-so I decided to stay behind to slow them down."

"And what did your commanding officer have to say about this?" he asked in a mild voice.

She pursed her lips and turned the stick in her hands over, studying it closely while her shoulders hunched. "He - he told me no, but I did it anyway."

Shikamaru sighed and nodded. She glanced at him and hurried to continue with her story, ostensibly before he could change his mind and reprimand her. "There were three pursuers. I took out two with my trap - killed one, and injured the other."

Her voice only wobbled only a little on the word 'kill,' but he noted it and realized it was probably her first. Of course, the genin corps don't generally see a lot of true combat, so it wasn't surprising.

"The others were able to get away, but I was captured. They were going to kill me, but...the leader said they could get a good price for me, and that they'd have some f-fun breaking me in first."

His hand tightened on his kunai and he breathed deeply in through his nose. She'd done an admirable job keeping her voice steady through that, but the slight pauses and stutter on one word gave her away. He carefully kept his eyes down on the rabbit when he spoke. "Alright. What happened next?"

"They tied me up, and one of them carried me over his shoulder. They discussed going after the others to stop them before they could get to Suna and request backup, but decided to just cover their tracks instead and then get you to their camp so they could stop your bleeding and question you."

"So I was already unconscious by then," he clarified and she made a noise of agreement.

"There were six left at that point - you had killed a few of them - I could see four bodies but there might have been more - and I had taken out the one.

“We walked for a long time, doubling back and covering our tracks multiple times before we got to camp. One of them worked on your leg, but I'm not sure exactly what he did because they tied me up and put me in the captain's tent for later."

This time she didn't stutter.

"I could hear them talking amongst themselves, and they decided that most of them would go out and leave false trails to throw off any pursuers. They left two with us. Both stayed outside of the tent to keep an eye on you. I was able to untie myself and sneak out of the back of the tent.

“I found where they had put some of the supplies they took from our bags, including munitions, and set them up around the camp. They never noticed I wasn't tied up in anymore."

She paused and took a deep breath. “When one of them went to the bathroom I set the explosions off. I'm pretty sure he was killed since the biggest tag was in their latrine. I figured at some point one of them would need to go, so it was my best bet to take one out."

She lifted her hand and rubbed behind her right ear nervously with a pointer finger and something twinged in his memory. She was just so  _familiar,_ but he couldn't remember why, and it was frustrating.

"The other was thrown back from the blast. While he was disoriented I - I slit his throat."

She swallowed thickly before continuing. "Then, I untied you and made a sling from a tent that wasn't pitched, grabbed whatever supplies I could and the last of the munitions, and took off. I created a few traps to slow down any pursuers as we went and used genjutsu to try and throw them off the trail.

"We lost the last of them at the sink pit - between the delay it caused them, the false trails I created, and the small sandstorm, they must not have been able to track us. You developed a fever about seven hours before we reached the Land of Rivers. I didn't have anything I could help you with at that point -" Her voice broke and she cleared her throat again. Just how bad off had he been? 

"Once we crossed the borders and got out of the sand, I was able to find some plants I knew would help and created a poultice to help draw out the infection. Having water and cooler weather didn't hurt, either," she finished a little sardonically.

Shikamaru stared at her and she lowered her own gaze, looking uncomfortable, as though she expected him to start yelling.

"So," he finally said, and she flinched. "What happened to your arm?"

She looked down at it and cleared her throat. "Oh, you know..."

"Because I have a vague memory of attacking somebody while I was in the middle of my infection-induced fever."

Kozue reached out hesitantly and took the now-ready to cook rabbit from him, busying herself with putting it on the spit she had just created.

"Kozue-san," he said, tone full warning, and she cringed.

"You weren't in your right mind, and I was draining your wound. You thought I was attacking you, so. It's fine."

She carefully set up the rabbit over the fire, sprinkling fresh herbs - where had she even found them? - over it and then moving over to the small river they were camped next to. He struggled to his feet and hobbled to sit awkwardly next to her, with his body parallel to the water and his injured leg held out straight in front of him. He then leaned over and started scrubbing the rabbit blood from his hands.

When they were done, he accepted her hesitant help up and over to fire, where she went about turning their meal on its spit, which was smelling surprisingly good.

"Let me see it," he said and she gave him a questioning look.

"Your wound."

"Oh!" she put her hand over the makeshift bandage. "It's fine! Really, it's..."

"Kozue," he said in low, even tone that always had the people around him falling over themselves to do what he said.

She gritted her teeth and for a moment he thought she'd refuse, but then she shuffled to kneel in front of him and stared at the ground as he reached out carefully to unravel the cloth covering it.

She kept her eyes down and he couldn't help but think she was a bit of an odd duck. She obviously had gumption to have made it so far and kept both of them alive in such a difficult situation, yet she seemed almost terrified of him when she was given reminders of who exactly he was.

He sucked a breath in through his teeth in sympathy when he saw the deep gash on her arm. At least it seemed clean, and it had some sort of white goop on it that looked like it had brought the swelling down.

"It'll leave a scar," he said grimly, unable to help a twinge of guilt, and she just shrugged before moving away.

He watched as she wound the cloth back around the cut with easy, practiced motions.

"You're not a medic, or you wouldn't be in the Genin Corps," he said slowly and she lifted her eyes to his long enough to smile before turning back to the rabbit.

"No," she agreed. "You probably don't remember me telling you this, but my mom's an herbalist. I help her out at her shop a lot. It's all civilian grade stuff, but I know how to create a few poultices and identify certain plants with healing properties. I also ended up learning some first aid, since those things tend to go hand in hand."

"So your mom's a civilian," he said and she nodded.

"Your father...?"

Her shoulders hunched up to her ears. "No father," she said in a low voice.

Sensing a subject change was in order, he asked something that had been plaguing him since he woke up. "The water you gave me before - you said there was something in it for pain. Did it knock me out?" He didn't mean for it to come out sounding so accusing, but, well. If she had drugged him in a situation as dire as theirs was...

Her eyes widened and she jerked her head up to stare at him. "No! It's just for pain, I swear! I mean, I guess it's been known to make people a little drowsy, but nothing so strong as to -"

"Alright, alright, calm down," he said, holding his hands up at her apparent panic, already feeling tired. He knew he could be intimidating at times, but her reactions to him seemed over the top. "I'm sensitive to medications, is all. I probably just had an extreme reaction."

She relaxed a little at that but was still eyeing him warily from across the fire. "Why do I scare you so much, anyway? Enough that you purposely kept out of my line of sight for the full rebuild mission while we were in Sand?"

She stiffened and her eyes darted from side to side. Again, she rubbed at the ridge of bone right behind her ear with a finger, an obvious nervous habit - and just like that, he remembered another girl, this one a few years younger, doing the same thing as she sat across from Shikadai outside of the administration office. He had been wearing a cast and had been glaring fiercely at the mousy little girl...

"You're the academy kid that broke Shikadai's arm!" he crowed and all of the color drained from her face. "This whole time I thought you were acting shifty because you were some kind of plant from the enemy side -" she bristled a bit in indignation at that but he kept talking, a slow smirk spreading across his face as he leaned back, pleased that he had figured out what had been tugging at his memory and slightly annoyed that she had caused him so much stress over it, "-and really you were just avoiding me because you were worried I would be holding some sort of grudge."

"I - I -" she stuttered and he chuckled.

"You can't think that as a shinobi parent I'd be that upset? Shino told me that it was a prank gone wrong and you'd learned your lesson about using shinobi-grade materials to get revenge on someone."

"A...prank?" she said, brows furrowed. He studied her.

"Not a prank, then?" he finally said, voice shrewd, and she cleared her throat.

"It was...a duel," she said in a small voice. He blinked.

"A duel." His tone was unimpressed and she glanced up at him from under her lashes and nodded.

"I - I mean. I heard him being kind of harsh to somebody who was...who was kind to me once. And I confronted him and he was a total  _jerk -"_ apparently the memory still made her angry, because she had gone into a rant before remembering she was talking to said jerk's father and cut off, looking horrified, and turned her attention back to the rabbit.

"I'm perfectly aware of how my son can be." It was true - after all, he'd inherited his father's acerbic character and his mother's blunt demeanor. A deadly combination when he was annoyed.

She glanced up at him and he made an impatient motion for her to continue. "Well...he was really dismissive of me because I've never been very good at ninjutsu or taijutsu," she said,  and her cheeks turned pink.

"And I guess I lost my temper and challenged him...one of those stupid, 'meet at high noon and we'll see who has the biggest...uh...'" she drifted off and blushed a bright red and he snorted. "Anyway, I knew despite him skipping classes and not paying attention at the Academy that he was very talented and a genius according to everybody ever. So I...wentearlyandsetuptraps," she rushed out the last bit, and he huffed out a laugh when he worked out what she had said.

"I mean - I didn't actually expect him to fall for them!" she finally said, sounding affronted that her plan had actually worked. "But I guess he really did believe what he said about me being talentless because he didn't even  _look_ for traps."

"And he ended up with a broken arm," Shikamaru summed up and she gave one, short nod.

"I guess Shino-sensei decided to cover for me," she mumbled.

"So you were in Shikadai's class, which would make you, what, fourteen?" He watched as she pulled the rabbit from over the fire after checking to see if it was done cooking.

"Mmhm."

"And you were probably avoiding him along with me," he continued in a low, thoughtful tone as she cut a leg off their meal and handed it to him.

"Well, yes. I don't know that he even remembers me anymore, but. He never really liked me after that."

Shikamaru hummed his understanding. His son had probably not enjoyed being shown up by a someone whom he had decided was a substandard shinobi. Shikadai was smart, but he hadn't lived long enough to see that people were more than what they seemed at times. He bit into the crispy skin of the leg. It was delicious - at the moment he felt like it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever tasted. Of course, that was mostly because he desperately needed the calories and had barely eaten for...

"How long has it been?" he asked abruptly and glanced over to see her cheeks were poofed out with the amount of food she'd stuffed into her mouth.

She was probably just as hungry as he was. She chewed rapidly and swallowed, then wiped her mouth with the back of the hand not holding a chunk of rabbit meat.

"Almost four days since we were attacked. You were out of it from the fever for a day and a half, and we spent two in the desert and maybe half a day at their camp." He hummed and took another bite, mulling over everything she'd told him. Kozue had been captured after ensuring her team escaped, taken out two chunin or jounin level shinobi, then dragged his ass across the desert and kept him alive while dodging pursuers.

"How did you end up in the Genin Corps?" he asked, bafflement clear in his tone.

"I - what do you mean?" she asked after swallowing another bite, but he could see that his question had hurt her somehow.

"I mean, you're obviously too talented to be relegated to the Corps. You should be -"

"I'm not talented," she said, voice firm despite its softness. "I told you, I'm really, truly awful at combat. I was so terrible when our jounin-sensei gave us our test that he told me not to bother going back to the academy when I failed. He wrote a recommendation for me to go straight into the Corps."

Shikamaru frowned. That was...well, it was weird. Generally, the jounin chosen to test the prospective genin teams were the type that wouldn't miss talent like Kozue had displayed. They were there specifically to scout out hidden skills and make recommendations on the next step of a shinobi's career.

Some were put into the jounin track, yes, but others still were recommended to be trained in one of their departments where rank wasn't quite as important as specific proficiencies. She should have been sent to somebody in Intelligence at the very least if she wasn't suited for a combat-specialized role. What in the world had happened during her exam?

One look at her tense posture had him tabling the discussion for now. When he got back to the village, he'd pull her files and figure it out for himself. "Well. I suppose we shouldn't hold our breath that somebody will find us. If we lost our pursuers, we probably lost the trail of our rescuers, as well."

When she hunched in on herself he gave in to the urge to sigh. Why did she assume everything he said was a reprimand?

"Let's rest for another night." He glanced up at the now-darkening sky. "We'll start making our way to Konoha in the morning."

She nodded and then handed him more meat, which he accepted gratefully. When he noticed she was trying to give him more than his fair share a few minutes later, he just shook his head no and motioned for her to eat it. Kozue looked like she wanted to argue but something in his face must have clued her into the fact that it would be a bad idea, because she sulkily brought it to her own lips instead.

After they'd both washed up and she'd redressed his wound, which was a long, nasty gash that spanned from the inside of his thigh all the way around to the outer edge, he gritted his teeth before gathering himself and leaping into the hammock.

When she didn't follow, he leaned over the edge with a frown and sighed when he saw her making herself comfortable between the roots of a tree. "Oi, what are you doing?" he drawled and she glanced up at him.

"Um. Getting ready to sleep..."

"I'm assuming the reason you put us in a hammock in the first place was that you didn't want to fight off any bears in the middle of the night." The bears in the Land of Rivers were large, black, and extremely aggressive. Not normally something that would bother a shinobi of his rank but he was injured, low on chakra, and exhausted.

"Yes," she said in a small voice.

"So, shouldn't you be up here in the hammock?" he pressed, keeping his voice mild. "Unless you  _want_ to fight a bear, that is, but I remember you saying something about being terrible at combat..."

She looked away from him. "Well, I thought you would probably want the hammock to yourself, Nara-sama."

"We shared yesterday, didn't we? Besides, you need to make sure I don't fall out. Now get up here." He made sure to infuse his voice with authority.

A moment later, she had hopped up onto the hammock with a little too much force, causing the whole thing to swing hard enough that they would have both been knocked out of it if it weren't for Shikamaru's reflexes.

"I'm sorry Nara-sama!" she squeaked when he gritted his teeth against the discomfort the motion had caused his leg. "I just...I'm really clumsy and -"

"Alright, alright, calm down," he grumbled when her eyes filled with tears. "Lay down already."

He took in her stiff posture and could have smacked himself. He still wasn't at the top of his game, apparently. Not four days ago a bunch of large men who were much stronger than herself had been planning on forcing themselves on her and here he was insisting she sleep in the same hammock with him. Of course, he was doing it for their combined safety - he wasn't exactly at his most mobile at the moment and needed her close if they were attacked so he could defend her. Still...

"I can sleep in one of the trees," he said gruffly and moved to leave the hammock.

"N-no! It's okay. I'm fine," she said and he narrowed his eyes at her. "Sorry, I'm just. Being stupid, I guess."

Her eyes - which he now realized were more of a hazel than the green he'd originally assumed, wouldn't meet his own.

"It isn't stupid. Listen, in a different situation it'd be weird, but when we're on a mission, personal boundaries aren't something shinobi worry too much about. It's something you get used to after going on a few higher ranked missions. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

She blinked at him in surprise. "No, it's fine. I trust you, Nara-sama. I just didn't want to make  _you_ uncomfortable." She seemed genuinely upset that he assumed she had doubted his intentions.

His lip quirked into a smirk - she was a sweet girl beneath all of that low self-esteem. Well, when she wasn't luring enemy shinobi to their deaths or breaking his son's arm, she was sweet.

"Alright, then, since we've established that I'm not uncomfortable, and you're not uncomfortable, can we go to sleep? I'll take the first watch."

"Oh, I can -"

"Sleep," he said firmly. "I'll take the first watch."

He stared up at the sky, the girl a warm ball curled at his side, and hoped that his family wasn't too worried. It probably looked pretty bad from their perspective. All they would find was a destroyed camp with his blood all over it and a trail that lead to a graveyard before it disappeared. Temari was going to be such a pain when he finally made his way home. He quirked his lips up and imagined her ranting.

"Lazy! You let a fourteen-year-old genin who doesn't weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds drag you across the desert? No wonder it took you so long to come back!" Of course, after she was done yelling at him, she'd probably show him exactly how much she'd missed him...

"Nara-sama, wake up," a voice said and he groggily blinked his eyes open to take in the amused face of Kozue.

"You fell asleep during your watch, I think," she said and he forced himself not to show his embarrassment. That hadn't happened to him since he was a genin.

"Anyway, it's morning, late morning, I guess I was tired too..." she was babbling and it was just too early in the morning and he was still too sore all over to have the patience for it. She immediately stopped talking when he held up a hand, looking embarrassed.

"I'm going to go find us something to eat," she muttered, then awkwardly jumped out of the hammock, grunting a little with the impact when she hit the ground.

Come to think of it, how did someone who had never done anything past the academy curriculum learn to use genjutsu and supplement their strength with chakra to the point where they could drag him around the Elemental Nations and jump into and out of hammocks that were twenty feet in the air?

Another mystery to unravel. With a sigh he followed her down, stifling a wince when he landed and moved over to the river to splash water on his face and get a drink. He then hobbled off to find a tree to do his morning business behind.

When he returned Kozue was sitting cross-legged in front of a piece of bark, using her fingers to grind up a pile of white flowers on it. She was dumping little bits of water into it as she did so, creating a white paste that looked similar to what had been on her own injury. She brightened when she saw him and he rubbed a hand over his cheek, which had quite a bit of stubble growing in and was starting to itch. He decided he was too tired to do anything about it and sat down when she motioned him over.

"Here, this will help keep the swelling down and prevent infection," she said and reached out and started to unwind the bandage on his thigh.

He watched while she rubbed some of the paste into it, babbling on about the plants she had used and their properties. Her shyness from the evening before seemed to have faded for whatever reason - maybe cuddling up to him through the night and waking up unmolested and without further injury had calmed her down.

"There," she said when she finished wrapping his bandages. Unable to help himself, he ruffled her still very knotted hair, causing her to start and stare up at him.

"Alright. Let me do your arm," he said and she held it out for him shyly. When he was done smearing the poultice on and retying her bandage, she leapt to her feet.

"I found this for you," she said and darted over to a tree and grabbed a long, semi-straight piece of wood that was leaning against it. It was about two inches thick in diameter and was grey with age.

"It should work as a walking stick," she explained while he got to his feet with less grace than he usually would. He took it from her and grunted his approval when it proved to be a good height for leaning on.

"Oh! And I thought you should probably have the kunai pouch," she said sheepishly, unhooking it from her waist and handing it to him. "I'm actually kind of crap with them."

He hummed and took it from her, wondering how bad she really was with the weapon. He'd have to test her when he got back. He shook his head at his thoughts. Most likely he'd be up to his eyeballs in crying blondes (Naruto) yelling blondes (Temari and Ino) and paperwork when he got home. There would be no time for testing a genin's skill with kunai.

"Can you water walk?" he asked after the pouch was strapped on. She shifted uncomfortably and shrugged.

"Kind of? I'm not...great at it."

He just grunted in reply. The worst thing about being stranded in the wilderness, wounded and without supplies, was the lack of tea. He blinked when a hand entered his vision holding a handful of small, green berries.

"Sorry, it's all I could find while I was taking down our traps," she said. "But they're not poisonous. They're actually pretty sweet."

He accepted the berries without a word and popped one in his mouth. She was right, they were sweet and deceptively juicy for their size. He turned towards the river, which was fairly calm and shallow - not always the case in this country - and stepped out onto it, leaning on his walking stick. His leg was already protesting and they weren't even out of sight of their camp yet.

Behind him, he heard Kozue muttering to herself and the distinct plop of a foot hitting the water. He smirked when she started swearing, but a moment later she toddled up next to him, wobbly but on top of the water. Her arms were held out to either side as if to help her with balance and the current was slowly dragging her away from him.

He snagged her wrist to hold her in place. She lost concentration and fell into the river with a splash. Wincing, he hauled her out of the water, spluttering and coughing, and set her gently next to him once she had chakra flowing to her feet again.

"You're keeping your chakra stagnant in your feet," he grumbled, cutting her off when she tried to apologize. "It needs to flow in a perfect counterpoint to the river."

He then let go of her arm and continued his hobbling way across the river. When he got to the bank he turned around and saw her standing, making a hand sign, with a fierce look of concentration on her face.

She was slowly starting to drift downstream, but after a few moments she stilled, staying in one spot as the river flowed around her. She looked up and met his eyes, beaming. Her smile took a face that was fairly average and filled it with a beauty that he knew would have boys flocking to her eventually. For some reason the thought made him want to put a paper bag over her head.

Instead, he returned her smile with a small one of his own. "Good."

Her eyes widened and she just stared at him in shock. He wondered when the last time was that somebody had praised her. Instead of commenting, though, he just waved her forward.

"Come on, then, we don't have time to stand around," he grumbled, then turned away and started to hobble towards home. A moment later she appeared next to him, cheeks still red with the rush of her accomplishment.

"Thank you for the tip, Nara-sama," she said after about an hour of walking in silence.

"No problem, kid," he said a bit distractedly, drumming his fingers on his walking stick.

"Is something wrong, Nara-sama?" When he sent her a sardonic look, she bit her lip to stop the smile that was threatening to spread across her face. "Other than the obvious, I mean."

He hummed and glanced at her, thinking. The thing on his mind wasn't exactly classified, though it wasn't something he'd want to be spread around either. Still, he was a little curious about what she'd say, so he answered.

"There's a diplomatic contingent from Iwa coming today. I was supposed to be their liaison. When they find out I'm missing, possibly presumed dead, it will seem like a major blow to the village."

Kozue tilted her head to the side, turning her eyes on him, which looked dark brown in the filtered light coming through the trees.

"Because you're one of the pillars of our leadership," she said slowly.

"Explain," he said mildly, more out of curiosity than anything. She shifted but answered.

"Well, I don't know if it's true or not, but a lot of people say that one of the reasons Hokage-sama is so successful as a leader is because you and he act as a partnership. The Nara have never been charismatic enough to hold the role of Hokage, but they're very intelligent and as clan head, you're probably strong enough for the role, too. So with both of you working in tandem, outsiders find Konoha pretty intimidating."

Shikamaru blinked at her, lifting a hand to scratch idly at the scruff growing on his cheeks before moving to smooth the hair on his chin. "That's...an accurate assessment of the situation."

Again, she smiled at him, and his shoulders slumped a little. He didn't have the energy to deal with cute kids smiling at him. "So then you see the problem."

"Well..." she drifted off and rubbed at the ridge behind her ear absently. "It's short-term, though, right? I mean, we'll be home in...three days? Four if your injury starts aggravating you worse than it is..."

He hummed. "Yes and no. It will probably be a blow to my reputation, which isn't as bad as me being dead, but..."

"You mean...because those guys managed to take you out? But there were so many of them! And you couldn't do anything really destructive because you had a bunch of genin you were covering for retreat." He shot her an amused look at the slightly naive breakdown of the situation.

"Kozue-san, I'm an S-ranked nin tasked with helping the Hokage protect the village. I should have been able to take on that group half asleep. I just miscalculated," he said and reached up to sheepishly rub at the back of his neck with the hand not clinging to his stick.

He watched her carefully as she absorbed that. "On top of that, the only reason I escaped was that a genin swooped in to save the day. It was just a terrible time for me to screw up so spectacularly," he muttered. "Naruto is good at keeping the peace, but Iwa has always been touchy."

She didn't even look upset by the observation that it was embarrassing for somebody of his rank to be saved by a genin, instead she looked thoughtful.

"Well. It's not like they have to knowexactly what happened. Just tell everybody other than Hokage-sama that you got hurt protecting me. Then  _you_ helped  _me_ escape, despite your injuries. That paints you as a strong nin who cares about even the lowliest of the ranks." Kozue shrugged. "They'll probably still judge you a little for it, but they won't decide that everybody has been overestimating your strength and start picking at Konoha."

He stared at her, shocked. "And you would be okay with that," he said in a flat voice. She frowned and blinked up at him in obvious confusion.

"Why wouldn't I be?" She stepped forward and pulled a large branch out of his path.

He had to press his lips together to hold back a smile at the gesture. The branch was huge and she had to strain her whole body to move it enough for him to squeeze by.

"Because you just saved the life of the head of the Nara clan. It would be a pretty big boost to your reputation," he finally settled on.

She just snorted and rubbed her hands on the fabric covering her thighs. They were probably covered in sap, now. "What reputation? I'm in the Genin Corps. I'm not even high up  _there,_ I'm a paperwork ninja. Nobody would believe me anyway." He studied her from the corner of his eyes, but she didn't look upset. A bit resigned, maybe, but still fairly cheerful, despite the bruises still littering her face and body.

"Where did you learn to water walk?" he asked, changing the subject because what she suggested was actually a good idea, but it made him feel uncomfortable. Kozue deserved to be acknowledged for what she had done. "I didn't think that sort of chakra application was taught to the genin corps."

"Oh, I actually asked a chunin to teach me how to walk up walls about six months ago."

Shikamaru perked up a bit. So she had found a mentor, then? "Oh? And they agreed?"

"Yeah. I did his shopping for a week in exchange. It took me a few months to get it down and I really had only just started on water walking before we left for the mission." She shrugged and sent a self-deprecating smile down at the ground. "His instructions were pretty thorough, but I don't have great chakra control so -"

"Wait," he cut in and brought a hand up to rub at his forehead, where a headache was starting to build. "You asked a fellow Konoha shinobi for pointers, and he made you do his shopping in exchange for a simple list of instructions? Did he at least follow up with you?"

"Um...no? But it was worth it - I would never have figured it out on my own." He shot her a look, and she shrugged sheepishly. "Well, I might have, but it would have taken even longer than it did."

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed. When he found out who had taken advantage of her...

"Um, Nara-sama? Are you in pain? Your face it doing this thing..." He sighed and didn't bother answering.

They fell back into silence, his brooding and hers interested as she took in the trees around them. They crossed another river before his leg forced him to take a break. Kozue knelt next to him, a frown on her face, which was starting to peel from the sunburn she'd received in the desert. From the way his nose was itching, his probably didn't look much better.

"Here," she said in a soft voice. "I picked a plant that's good for surface numbing that we came across today." He had seen her stop and study a small bush with purple leaves earlier that morning, but had still been too grumpy to ask.

"It'll only take a few minutes to make a paste." Before he could argue she had disappeared into some trees and he sighed.

Shikamaru had to admit his leg felt much better for the rest of the day once she applied the paste, though it was still an uncomfortable journey. They stopped to make camp, and she clambered awkwardly up a tree - he'd never actually seen somebody trip over their own feet while tree walking - to set up their hammock. He stubbornly refused to sit down, instead of gathering up some fallen branches and kindling, then using a small jutsu to start a fire.

Just as he'd finished, Kozue landed next to him, stumbling a bit from the drop out of the hammock, and he rolled his eyes.

"Nara-sama! You should have let me do that," she scolded. "You need to rest your leg."

He ignored her, instead focusing his attention on movement in the bushes. She  _eeped_ next to him when he reached into his pouch and pulled a kunai before sending it flying at the bush. The thunk of it hitting flesh echoed through their little clearing and she went still.

"What -" she whispered.

"Well, go get us our dinner," he said in a mild tone.

She glanced at him, but stood and walked slowly to the bush. After a moment she rose, beaming at him when she revealed the dead rabbit with a kunai sticking out of it.

"Hey, we're going to get tired of rabbit meat soon. Next time get us a quail or something, huh?" He raised an eyebrow at her smiling face and she faltered as if she'd just remembered who she was teasing. The girl was just so  _odd._

"I'll keep it in mind," he drawled and she relaxed, then brought the rabbit over. Just like the night before, she went and found some long sticks to set up a spit with and he dressed the rabbit. She also came back with a handful of fragrant plants, holding them out and smiling.

"There's so much plant life here! Look, some wild herbs. This will be the best we're-eating-it-for-survival meal ever," she said cheerfully and he snorted.

They worked in silence, then went to the small stream next to their camp to wash their hands - the land of rivers was aptly named, there was water  _everywhere -_ in comfortable silence.

"If your mom is an herbalist," he said while he watched her sprinkle the wild herbs she'd found over the rabbit, "what made you decide to become a ninja?"

She glanced over at him as if gauging his sincerity, then shrugged. "I guess...I just wanted to prove I could do it. That I could be good at it." He could see there was a lot she wasn't saying, but he remained silent, watching the emotions playing over her face. Finally, it settled on rueful, and she shrugged.

"As you can see, it didn't exactly work out the way I wanted it to. I just never really got good at the physical aspects of it. Or, well, the chakra aspects."

Shikamaru frowned. "You can't be that bad at it. You did that genjutsu. Also, you managed to carry me across the desert and teach yourself tree walking."

"Well, yeah, but it took me a really long time to learn those things. And really, what you saw is about the extent of my abilities. That's...not exactly impressive," she said, keeping her eyes firmly on the cooking meat, though her hunched shoulders gave her feelings away.

"Actually," he said with a yawn, knowing too much earnestness would backfire, especially coming from him, "It is rather impressive. Most genin don't just teach themselves these things, you know."

Before she could reply, he changed the subject. "So once you were relegated to the Genin Corps, why didn't you quit?"

"Ah, well. I'm a Takahani. We don't give up easily," she said matter of factly. "When my sister decided she would marry the son of the owner of the Akimichi restaurant down the street, nobody could convince her otherwise. It took her five years to convince him, but eventually, he gave in, along with his clan." Her lips quirked up. "She taught herself to bake, and worked at it until even his parents were impressed."

"She made herself useful to their clan," he said. Apparently, cleverness ran in the family. "Five years is a long time to court somebody." He felt a rush of satisfaction when she laughed, chasing away the lingering melancholy on her face .

"Well, she was thirteen when she met him, so it was always going to be a long game," she said in a low voice, as though she was sharing a secret with him.

"So, why didn't you ask your in-laws for help?" he asked before he could stop himself. Luckily, she seemed unbothered by the question.

"Oh, well, my sister's husband isn't a shinobi, and neither are his parents. Some of his cousins are, but I'm not really close enough to them to ask."

He hummed but didn't answer. He was exhausted, his body still sending most of its resources to his leg along with recovering from his infection and blood loss. They ate dinner in silence and after Kozue went off to bury the bones and skin of the rabbit to keep away predators, they both settled into the hammock.

"I'll take first watch this time, Nara-sama," she said from where she was sitting cross-legged across from him. Leaning back against the portion of the hammock that angled upwards, she pulled out a large, glossy leaf.

He didn't bother arguing with her since he knew he needed the rest. He closed his eyes and fell into the light doze that was as deep a sleep as he usually allowed himself on a mission. Excepting yesterday, when his body had demanded a deeper sleep from him, apparently.

Sometime later, he woke up to the sound of humming. He cracked his eyes open and saw that Kozue was still in the same position, lit by the almost-full-moon. She was folding a leaf into the shape of a swan, and next to her he saw a small assortment of leaf-animals.

"It was you singing," he said and she jolted at the sound of his voice before looking up at him in confusion. "When I was sick."

She looked away and rubbed behind her ear, obviously embarrassed. He just waited patiently for her reply, still on the edge of sleep.

"...my mom sings to her patients when they come to her," she finally admitted. "She says that it helps people feel better."

Shikamaru hummed in acknowledgment. The girl really was sweet. He realized that he was fond of her, despite how awkward and clumsy she was, and held back a sigh. Troublesome. He was busy enough without adding in the problem that was Takahani Kozue to his plate.

He fell back asleep to the sound of her humming and woke a few hours before dawn when a tentative hand shook him. Without exchanging a word, he sat up and she curled into what he was starting to think was her customary sleeping position and fell asleep immediately. She hadn't complained, but he could see she was still recovering from their trek through the desert. He reached over and picked up the leaf-swan she'd made, fiddling with it as the world lit up around him.

He didn't wake her with the sunrise - she'd obviously let him sleep as long as she could stand and there was no point in driving themselves back into sickness. Better to take an extra half a day and not fall ill while stranded in a foreign country. She stirred a few hours after sunrise, blinking her eyes open and sitting up. She took in the position of the sun and started, turning accusing eyes on him.

"Eh, don't look at me like that. Next time wake me up halfway through the night and I won't have to let you sleep in."

She blushed and grumbled something before swinging her legs over the side of the hammock, scattering her little army of leaf animals without apparent care. After a moment spent building up her courage, she pushed herself off the edge and he snickered when she let out a small swear word at her undignified-sounding landing.

He followed and noticed his leg didn't seem to hurt quite as bad as it had the day before. The rest of the infection must have worked itself out. It was still painful, but it wasn't as all-encompassing as it had been. He hobbled in the opposite direction of where she was splashing water on her face into the trees. He'd just finished up his morning ablutions when he heard a small, cut off cry - so quiet as to barely be there, but he caught it anyway.

His body was moving before he fully absorbed what he had heard, making the sign for a shunshin and appearing in their camp a moment later. The world sharpened around him when he caught sight of his companion. She was lying on her back in the mud with a large man braced over her, a cruel grin on his face and an old, chipped sword pressed to her throat.

"Look what I found," he was saying through a leer.

Shikamaru took one look at her wide eyes and terrified face and felt the iciness in his veins that he recognized as rarely-felt rage. Her hands were both wrapped around the large wrist holding the sword but she was holding herself completely still, realizing how easy it would be to slit her own throat on his blade.

Another hand sign and shadows raced across the ground and up the body of the man, wrapping around his throat and yanking him off of Kozue. His back hit a tree with enough force that it bowed and cracked and the man dropped his sword and brought both hands up to claw at the shadows clinging to him.

Shikamaru reached into his pouch, pulled out a kunai, and sent it flying into the trees to his right, though his eyes never left the man his shadows were slowly choking. The wet sound of blade sinking into flesh told him he'd hit the second person hiding in the trees.

"How many others," Shikamaru said in a hard tone and the man - a missing-nin from Kiri if his headband was to be believed - just shook his head, terrified.

Just the two of them, then. Probably thought they'd come across easy pickings when they saw Kozue. With barely a thought, his shadows snapped the man's neck.

He made his way over to the other nin - dead - and pulled his kunai out of his chest. He then returned to Kozue, who had sat up and was staring wide-eyed at the dead man who'd been attacking her moments earlier. He knelt next to her, wincing at the pain making itself known in his leg. He'd aggravated his injury when he'd dashed over.

"Are you alright?" he asked when she just stared at him.

After a moment she nodded once, motions jerky. He ran his eyes over her, but other than the mud now smeared into her hair, she seemed fine.

"I - I didn't even see him coming," she said after a moment.

She was trembling all over and he reached out, slowly so she could pull back if she wanted, and put his hand on her shoulder.

"He was at least high chunin level," he said gently. "So it's not surprising." When she didn't pull away, he gently tugged her towards the stream. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

She stared past his shoulder, body limp and malleable while he gently cleaned the mud out of her hair and clothes as best he could with only a stream to work with. She was soaked by the end of it, but he figured it was warm enough out that she'd dry.

"I hate being weak," she said when he was clumsily pulling her hair back into a ponytail. "I wanted - I wanted to be  _strong_ but instead I - I-"

Her eyes filled with tears and he sighed, then pulled her against his shoulder. She didn't cry like Ino or Temari, who did that like they did everything else - loudly and without shame. The only signs that it was happening were her shaking shoulders and the wetness he could feel soaking through his shirt.

When she finally stopped and pulled back, turning to splash water on her face to wipe away the snot and tears, he studied her. There was more going on than her reaction to being ambushed. He remembered the leering expression the nin had been making and narrowed his eyes at the bruises on her face.

"I think," he said slowly, "that you've left out a few details of what happened while I was unconscious and we were captured."

She hunched in on herself and he pulled her in for another hug. "It's okay, whatever happened, it wasn't your fault."

"They didn't r-rape me," she said, then paused before continuing. "But when we stopped for a small break, they made me kiss them." The iciness was coming back into his veins and he forced himself to breathe through it.

"Okay," he said, but she continued talking.

"I tried to fight them, but, then they..." she trailed off and lifted a hand to lightly touch his ribs, where he'd noticed they were tender, probably cracked. He'd assumed it had happened when he had been fighting off the missing-nin - that was still just a hazy memory - but apparently, they'd done it to him while he was unconscious.

"They hurt me to get you to cooperate," he said flatly and she nodded.

"It wasn't - we didn't stop for long before the leader made them move. So, not a lot h-happened."

He sighed. "They made you feel like you didn't have any power by making you cooperate. It doesn't make you weak," he said gently. "Many very strong shinobi and kunoichi have been through something similar."

He bowed his head. "I'm sorry they used me against you. Thank you for taking care of me."

She stiffened. "It wasn't -"

He straightened and looked her in the eye so she'd know he was serious. "You saved me, despite how difficult it was, and you didn't leave me behind. Your strength comes from here," he said, tapping her chest, "and you have a lot of it. You aren't weak," he repeated, more firmly this time.

"Oh," she squeaked and her cheeks turned pink.

He cleared his throat, embarrassed at having resorted to such a corny line, but she seemed to perk up a little after that, so he declared his pep-talk a success. He struggled to his feet, wincing, and she immediately started making noises about checking his leg. He ignored her and rifled through the pack on the second ninja - the one that had fallen to his kunai. He pulled out a long-sleeved black shirt that smelled clean-ish when he took a cautious whiff. He also found some ration bars and more kunai along with a second pouch.

When he made it back to the clearing, Kozue had taken their hammock down and bundled it up so she could carry it on her back and was mushing together a pulpy mess for his leg. He sighed, but gave into his fate, sitting next to her and letting her fuss over his injury. He had to admit it felt better when she was done. He then handed her the shirt, raising his eyebrow at her when she clutched it to her chest and grinned like he'd just given her an amazing gift.

He would have offered her his own earlier but wasn't sure if it would just make her more uncomfortable to hang out with a man wearing only see-through mesh armor for a shirt. At least she had a sports bra on beneath her mesh. Still, she immediately relaxed at the addition of the piece of clothing, despite needing to roll up the sleeves to keep her hands free. It was so long that when she put the extra kunai pouch around her waist - the straps that had been a perfect length for a large shinobi's thigh just slid down her leg - it looked like she was wearing an ill-fitting dress over her pants. He turned away to hide his smile, knowing better than to make fun of a woman's outfit after years with Temari. By her scowl when he turned back, he hadn't succeeded in hiding his amusement and he ruffled her hair again.

They both ate a ration bar while they walked for breakfast, having set off much later then they meant to between their late start and being attacked by two ninja. Kozue seemed to have finally become comfortable around him, because after a while she started chattering, filling the silence with stories about her sister, whose name was Izumi, and some of her mother's more eccentric clients. Her voice was soft and didn't grate on his nerves, and he nodded along with her, even chuckling in places.

By silent agreement, they only stopped for a short break before continuing on. That evening he smirked when he returned from a bathroom break with two birds for dinner and was rewarded with a giggle. No need to tell her he'd passed over two rabbits before finding the pheasants she'd jokingly requested the day before.

She held up a few herbs, then they fell into what was now a routine, him dressing the birds while she set up two little spits.

She settled against him in the hammock without discomfort and after only a few minutes was humming tunelessly. This time she was fiddling with some thin vines she'd found hanging from a tree, looping it around her fingers and creating complex patterns. He recognized it as a civilian children's game and watched for a few minutes before letting the rhythm of her fingers and pleasant humming lull him into sleep.

This time she woke him up at the halfway point of the watch schedule and he ended up staring down at her, bemused when she curled against him without any lingering shyness and fell asleep. He sighed and decided she probably needed the comfort, even if she was drooling down the side of his shirt. Even though she was the same age as Shikadai she reminded him of his son when he was much younger and less concerned with being independent. Though he had to admit what Temari called his 'backward traditional Nara upbringing' made him feel more protective of her than he would a male of the same age.

He allowed a shiver of rage to run through him when he remembered what she'd told him that morning. As soon as he was healed, we was going to track down the men who'd captured him and show them exactly what it meant to mess with a person that he considered one of his own.

He paused and blinked, then glanced down at the lightly snoring girl. Since when did a graceless genin he met for the first time a week ago count as one of his people?  _Since she pulled your ass out of the fire, got hurt protecting you, and then cried on your shoulder._

"What a pain," he grumbled and leaned his head back against the canvas, staring up at the stars and wondering why he was always being pulled into these situations. He didn't even try to stop his hand from running soothingly through her hair when she started twitching in her sleep, probably having a nightmare.

They didn't run into any further trouble in their travels and crossed into Fire Country late the next morning. He discovered that she tended to always be fidgeting and couldn't help but chuckle when she wove them both flower necklaces out of orange and white blooms while they walked the next day. She grinned at him and placed one over his head.

"Nara-sama," she said seriously with a bow, as though she'd just bestowed a priceless gift upon him, already wearing her own orange and white necklace.

He sighed but didn't bother removing it, mostly just relieved that she seemed recovered from the day before. "Shikamaru-sama," he corrected and she blinked at him.

"You can call me by my first name. I figure since you've bathed me and carried me across a desert, you earned it." She squeaked and shook her head.

"I couldn't -"

"You just forced me to wear a flower necklace, but calling me by my first name freaks you out?" he drawled and she looked down at her feet and mumbled something.

Later she made sure to call him Shikamaru-sama, even if she stumbled over the syllables a bit and wouldn't meet his eyes. Cute.

By the time the gates of Konoha appeared before them the next day they were tired, dirty, and his leg was throbbing in a way that he knew meant infection was setting in again. The worried face Kozue had been making when she dressed it that morning told him his guess was correct. They hadn't spoken of it, though, knowing that they were almost home and that there was only so much her poultices could do for him when they were on the road.

They were immediately besieged when they entered the tower by a blur of orange and black. He sighed and patted his sniffling Hokage on the back, smirking at Kozue's slack-jawed expression at how completely undignified her Hokage was.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said as Naruto wailed about how worried they'd all been.

"I'm fine, he says," a voice sniped and he looked over his shoulder at Ino, who was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. Of course, she'd known he was back before anybody else.

"We get reports of your blood spread all over the site of a completely destroyed enemy camp, with a trail that goes cold at those stupid sink pits in Wind Country, and all you have to say for yourself -"

He sighed and tugged her into a hug, cutting her off. She sniffled against his shoulder before pushing away from him. "You stink. And somebody needs to send a message to Temari before she succeeds in tearing the desert apart."

"Oh, right," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his neck and chuckling.

He summoned one of his toads and had a whispered conversation with it before it disappeared.

Ino was already running a hand over Shikamaru's leg, lips pursed. "You look like crap - let's get you to the hospital."

Shikamaru sighed and slouched, but knew better than to argue with her.

"Alright. Kozue, come on -" he turned to where she'd been standing and blinked when he saw she was edging away from them. "Don't be troublesome. Ino can look at your arm, too."

"O-oh, no, that's okay, Nara-sama. Yamanaka-sama has better things to do than to -"

She swallowed back what she had been saying at his unimpressed look, then squeaked when Ino pounced on her, pushing up her sleeve and unwrapping the bandage on her arm, clucking at it.

"This is infected!" she scolded and Shikamaru jerked.

"What? Why didn't you tell me it was bothering you?" he asked and Kozue shrugged and looked away.

"I knew we'd be back soon, and it's not as bad as your leg, Nara-sama -"

"I believe I told you to use my first name," he snapped and she hunched her shoulders. He immediately felt guilty, especially when Naruto looked at him like he'd just witnessed Shikamaru stomping on a kitten's tail.

"Kozue-chan, right? You must be the missing genin," Naruto said and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, making her stiffen and cringe away.

"Naruto," he said in a low voice, but he needn't have bothered. Naruto noticed her reaction to his unexpected touch and casually stepped away, instead bending down to smile at her.

"Hey, I'll walk with you to the hospital, and you guys can give me your reports while Ino takes care of you, okay?" Kozue, like the rest of the world, was immediately put at ease by his smile and nodded shyly.

"Y-yes, Hokage-sama."

They ignored the crowd they'd gathered and made their way towards the hospital, Naruto creating a clone to carry an annoyed Shikamaru, who didn't bother arguing. Nara didn't bother to fight losing battles, after all. He sent Kozue an unimpressed look when she giggled at his pout and Ino leaned down to whisper something in her ear that made her slap a hand over her mouth to stop her laughter.

He relaxed, glad Ino was with them. He was sure she'd noticed Kozue's reaction to Naruto's touch and would do her best to put the girl at ease. Actually, he'd ask her to do a few sessions with Kozue. Usually, a genin wouldn't be put under the purview of the village's best mind healer, but, well, Ino would do it as a favor to him, he was sure.

When they finally got to a private room at the hospital, Shikamaru refused to let Ino look at his leg until after she'd dealt with Kozue. Naruto sat in the corner and listened to their reports with a serious expression, not looking the slightest bit surprised when he discovered Kozue's role in Shikamaru's survival. That was the thing about Naruto - he truly believed that there was a hero in each and every one of the village's shinobi, no matter what their rank.

"Wow, Kozue, you're so brave!" he said and patted her on the head.

Her eyes widened and she leaned against Shikamaru. Ino's eyes narrowed at the action and he was sure she was coming up with all sorts of theories about their relationship. Probably all of them were right, too.

"I - I just did what anybody would have," she said, shifting uncomfortably.

Ino snorted, but didn't say anything as she wrapped a new, clean bandage on her arm and gave her strict instructions on aftercare.

"Are the Iwa contingent still here?" Shikamaru asked and Naruto's smile turned strained.

"Yeah, they've got a few unexpected requests for the new agreement," he said and Shikamaru sighed.

Just as he'd predicted, his disappearance was seen as a weakness, and the fact that he'd been saved by a fourteen-year-old genin wouldn't help. Now they were pushing for more concessions. "Well, we'll just have to -"

"E-excuse me, Nara - um, Shikamaru-sama," Kozue said, pulling the attention of both himself and Naruto.

She looked off to the side, nervous at the attention but jaw set in a determined expression he was becoming familiar with. "What about what we talked about doing before? Telling everybody, you were injured protecting me. I-if we put the blame on me, say I distracted you by turning back -"

"No," Shikamaru said as Ino took a deep breath, probably ready to lecture him about pushing his failures off onto children. "I told you, we aren't doing that."

Naruto, however, was looking at her thoughtfully. "You'd be willing to do that?"

Kozue ignored Shikamaru and nodded. "Yes, Hokage-sama. It's - I don't really have a reputation to worry about. I'm just a low ranking genin."

"It could work," Naruto said thoughtfully and Ino narrowed her eyes but didn't comment. Shikamaru looked between them, flabbergasted.

"You cannot seriously be considering this," he finally said. "You want me to push my mistakes onto a genin? A child?"

"Shikamaru-sama." Kozue turned and looked up at him. "If it helps us keep the peace with Iwa, then who cares? I know how strong you are, and that you aren't trying to hide behind me, and you - you saved me too, so we're even. Nobody will look twice at me either way. Please, let me do this." He grimaced at her wide eyes, ignoring Ino's snort at his reaction to the blatant manipulation.

He winced when Ino unwound the bandage on his leg and started poking at his wound. "Oi, be more gentle, woman!" he snapped and she scoffed. When his eyes fell on Kozue, he saw she was biting her lip to stop a smile and sighed.

"So, it's decided! Let's write up your reports and the four of us won't tell anybody outside of this room what happened. Well. Except I'll probably tell Hinata, and maybe you should tell Temari," Naruto said with a nervous laugh. "Kozue-chan doesn't deserve her being annoyed with her."

Shikamaru brought a hand to his brow. "I told you we aren't going to-" he started, but Naruto was already taking out a scroll and scribbling down the modified version of the report. Kozue sent him a small, encouraging smile and he sighed, defeated.

Ino made him stay in the hospital overnight because she was a she-devil who liked to torture him, and he spent the time he wasn't sleeping glowering at the ceiling. At least he'd gotten to shower and she'd brought him a change of clothes. Kozue had given him a rushed, awkward hug before Naruto declared that he would walk her home and explain things to her mother.

The Iwa contingent had caved once word of his 'heroics' had swept through the village. He understood why Naruto had accepted the plan put forward by Kozue, but it made him feel itchy and wrong. He didn't want to just sweep what Kozue had done under the rug. He'd told Ino about the girl after she left, about how strange he found it that she'd been shuffled into the Corps, along with requesting that Ino do a few sessions with her.

Ino had agreed immediately when he filled her in on what Kozue had told him happened after they'd been captured, her lips pursing and eyes glinting. To his surprise, she'd offered to look into the girl's career, as well, and figure out if there was a better place for her to go than a dead end job in the Corps.

That morning Temari and Shikadai had swept into his room, still smelling of a desert, distracting him from his thoughts with more pleasant things. He'd nodded along with his wife's scolding and reveled in her embrace. Even Shikadai, who had lines on his face speaking of exhaustion, had hugged him for a long time. It all just reminded him of how much he owed Kozue.

Temari and Shikadai had gone home to shower, promising to return later when he was supposed to be discharged, Temari leaning down and giving him a gentle kiss before dragging a protesting Shikadai from the room. He fell into a doze and was awoken by the sound of voices.

"You," his son's voice came from just outside the door.

"Shi-Shikadai-san, hello," Kozue's nervous voice said.

"Was it you?" his son's furious voice said. "Were you the idiot genin who tried to play hero and almost got my dad killed?"

Shikamaru jolted, eyes widening. He'd never heard Shikadai talk to somebody that way.

"I - I -" Kozue stuttered.

"Breaking my arm wasn't enough? You decided you'd go after my dad, too? Kami, it's not surprising someone as pathetic as you ended up in the Corps."

Shikamaru finally found his voice.

"Shikadai," he barked, and silence descended for a moment.

"H-here," Kozue's voice, which sounded thick with tears, said, and then he heard the sound of running footsteps.

A moment later, Shikadai appeared in the doorway, face set into a scowl and holding a bouquet of orange and white flowers with a little card tucked into it that said  _Get Well Soon!_

"Shut the door," Shikamaru said in a low voice.

Shikadai looked nervous, not used to hearing that tone from his father, but it passed quickly and he turned to do as he requested. He then moved over and set the vase down on the table with more force than was necessary. "Apparently the girl who almost got you killed thinks  _flowers_ is enough to make up for it," he grumbled.

"Enough," Shikamaru snapped, then forced himself to take a deep breath.

"Shikadai," he continued more calmly, "do you always believe everything you hear?"

"No, but -"

"The official report on what happened to me isn't true," Shikamaru said bluntly and Shikadai stared at him. "The Hokage released it as is because he felt it would weaken our position against Iwa if they found out the only reason his most trusted advisor came home alive was that a fourteen-year-old girl from the Genin Corps saved his life."

Shikadai immediately understood the implications. "So Kozue didn't..."

"No. She was captured separately from me when she set up traps that bought the rest of her team time to escape. Actually, she blew up the enemy camp and then carried my unconscious body across the desert. She treated my wounds and cared for me when they became infected."

Shikadai shifted uncomfortably. "Well, then why did she let me say those things to her? The way she reacted..."

"It was her idea to lie. She probably didn't want to weaken Konoha's position just because somebody was cruel to her." Shikamaru sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead. "I can only hope the rest of Konoha doesn't treat her so horribly."

000

Shikamaru didn't go looking for Kozue until a month had passed. She hadn't tried to see him again after her run-in with Shikadai and he couldn't say he blamed her. He would have liked to have tried sooner, but the truth was he was too busy dealing with tracking down his attackers, finishing treaty updates with Iwa, and all of the other things he fell behind on between his mission and being kidnapped.

He did have his assistant send a request to the Genin Corps Commander to find her some extra training, earmarking her file for a possible Intelligence recruit at Ino's suggestion after she looked through her file. Ino also assured him that her therapy sessions were going well. When he asked her what was going on with her investigation into the girl's history, she had frowned.

"I've...run into some interesting facts. I'll update you when I know more." Shikamaru knew better than to press her, so left it at that.

Temari had only hummed when he told her about asking the genin commander to give Kozue extra training. He knew his wife well enough to realize when she disapproved of something he'd done, but couldn't get her to tell him what she was thinking. Women were so. Troublesome.

Shikadai found him in his office late the night before he decided to go looking for her himself and admitted he'd tracked her down and apologized. He shifted uncomfortably, eyes studying the wall. "You should go see her."

"What? Why?" Shikamaru asked around a yawn.

"You just should," is all Shikadai would say, because he was truly his mother's child, before sitting on the couch in his office and taking out a video game.

He'd been clingy in his own way since Shikamaru returned from what he now knew people had assumed was death. Mostly it consisted of him popping up at his office, both at home and at the tower, and playing his video games in his general vicinity.

The next morning he had his assistant clear an hour on his calendar, having snuck peek at Kozue's work schedule to see when she got off. He meandered towards the Genin Corps headquarters, smirking to himself when he stopped to buy two tiny hens that had been roasted. The day was cool and clear and he thought longingly of his cloud watching hill, which he hadn't visited for months. He entered the building and made his way towards the Genin Corps break room, not bothering to acknowledge the bows and respectful "Nara-samas" he was garnering.

He entered the room and settled down to wait on a couch after setting the birds on a coffee table, feet stretched out in front of him and eyes half closed. It was semi-crowded with groups of genin as they moved in and out, stopping at a row of lockers to either put things in or take them out, depending on whether they were leaving or arriving. Finally, the girl he'd been waiting for slipped through the door. He sat up and frowned when he saw the way she kept her eyes on the ground and moved quickly over to what he assumed was her locker.

He didn't miss how the room had gone silent and a few unfriendly stares had turned her way. When she got to her locker and opened it, somebody purposely stepped forward and knocked her shoulder with their own. She let out a little cry and put a hand to it, gritting her teeth and keeping her eyes on her locker as the person leaned forward and whispered something in her ear before sweeping out.

Shikamaru stood and strode across the room and the genin went quiet and white-faced when they noticed him. He was good at blending into the background and nobody had thought twice about the man hunched over on their break room couch, face in shadow. Kozue must not have noticed the reactions around her, because she reached into her now-open locker and pulled out manilla folder.

"Are you hurt?" He asked her and she jumped, slamming into her locker door and dropping her folder. He glared when a few genin snickered and a few moments later the room was empty except for the two of them.

"Sh-Shikamaru-sama!" she gasped, putting a hand to her heart. "You scared me!"

He just raised an eyebrow at her, then bent down to pick up the papers she'd dropped.

"No!" she said, rushing to grab them before he could. "I can -"

But it was too late, he'd already caught sight of the title on one of the sheets of paper that had fallen out. He picked it up and stared at it. "Notice of Resignation," he said slowly. "Kozue-chan...what is this?"

She snatched the paper from his hand and stuffed it into the folder, standing and clutching it to her. "I - it's nothing," she said and he studied her as he stood, taking in her slumped posture and wet eyes. He thought back to the scene he witnessed and his hands tightened into fists.

"Kozue. Show me your shoulder," he said in a low voice and she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Resisting the urge to physically make her, he took a deep breath.

"You can either show me your shoulder, or I'll take you to Ino for a full checkup."

"Fine," she snapped and shoved the folder back into her locker with too much force.

She then jerkily removed her vest and handed it to him. When she pulled her collar to the side and revealed a welt that was so deeply bruised it was black, he hissed in a breath.

"Who did this to you?" He had to work to keep his voice calm.

Kozue must have sensed his intentions because she gave him a wary look and put her clothing back into place, not protesting when he helped her back into her vest. "It wasn't one of the other genin, if that's what you're thinking. It happened in training with Hakun-taicho."

One of the captains of the Genin Corps. Apparently, the person assigned to take on her training. Shikamaru knew the man and hadn't been impressed the few times he'd met him.

"And how many other bruises do you have like that?" When she didn't answer he turned away, not wanting her to see how close he was to losing it. Hakun was a dead man.

"Well. I brought us lunch," he said with forced lightness and she followed him over to the couch warily. He relaxed when she snorted at the birds he'd brought and he smirked at her.

"So, I guess our little story had a bigger impact on your life than expected, hmm?" he finally said after they'd eaten and she looked down at her box of food.

"I...a nurse heard what Shikadai said that day outside your room. I guess it made it to the gossip mill and..." she shrugged. "It's okay, Shikamaru-sama. I told you, I wasn't much of a ninja, anyway. Hakun-taicho says that I'm pretty much hopeless, so I decided to resign and help my mom run her business. I didn't do so bad making poultices for your injuries and fever when we were out in the forest. So really, it's - it's probably best things worked out this way."

He stared at her, noting the way her hands were shaking and her tear-filled eyes, and suddenly knew exactly why Temari had disapproved of him trying to foist Kozue's training onto somebody else. Hadn't he decided she was one of his, now?

"This is going to be such a pain," he grumbled.

With a sigh he stood up and walked over to her locker, wrenching it open and breaking the lock in the process. She made a sound of alarm when he tugged out the folder holding her resignation, then picked up her bag with the other hand.

"Well, come on, let's go hand in your resignation," he said and turned and stomped towards the door.

She scurried to catch up to him and he raised an eyebrow when he opened the door and saw at least ten genin scrunched up against it, obviously trying to eavesdrop. They fell over themselves in an attempt to back up and he moved through them, slouch firmly in place, uncaring when he stepped on appendages that didn't move out of his way in time.

He turned towards what he knew was Hakun's office and meandered down the hallway. Kozue followed behind him meekly, not talking, though she made a distressed sound when Shikamaru opened the office door without knocking, catching the captain of the Genin Corps mid-bite. The man stared at him a little stupidly before his mind caught up with the situation and he set down his chopsticks and struggled to his feet, bowing low.

"N-Nara-sama!" he exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize we had an appointment -"

"We didn't," he drawled, then moved forward and slapped the folder holding Kozue's resignation on his desk. "You know, when I asked you to give Kozue extra training, I didn't mean that you should beat on her and tell her she's a hopeless case," he said conversationally and the color drained from the man's face.

His eyes darted to where Kozue was standing behind him and to the right and then narrowed. "I don't know what she's been telling you, but the girl is a -"

"I suggest you think very carefully before insulting my apprentice," Shikamaru said in a low voice, still slouched but exuding a small amount of killing intent.

"Your what?" Both Hakun and Kozue said at once and his lip quirked up on one side, though there was no amusement to it.

"That's her resignation from your forces. I suggest you approve it. Oh, and Hakun-san? I've decided to start doing random physical assessments of people in our leadership positions. Meet me at training field ten tomorrow at eight am."

It was early for Shikamaru, but he had a ten o'clock meeting, so it couldn't be helped. He was rewarded for giving up his morning when Hakun's face turned an interesting shade of green. "Y-yes Nara-sama."

With that, Shikamaru turned to leave the room, bumping into a wide-eyed Kozue on his way out. He sighed and gently turned her towards the door, herding her out into the hallway where a few brave genin had followed and were now staring at them, wide-eyed, having overheard his declaration.

They made it all the way outside and halfway to the administration building before Kozue spoke. "Shikamaru-sama, what did you mean -"

"Shishou," he cut her off, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. After what he'd just done, he needed it. He glanced over at her confused expression and sighed.

"I believe the customary honorific that an apprentice uses to address her master is 'shishou.'" She continued to gape at him and he turned his attention back to his cigarette and keeping his expression calm.

"You can't actually mean to make me your apprentice," she finally blurted after he put out his cigarette and they entered the administration building.

Her words garnered a double take from an Inuzuka passing by and he sighed when he realized the whole village would know by the end of the day that he, Nara Shikamaru, had just signed himself up for  _years_ of extra work. There would be no escaping it now.

"Why not?" he asked, completely aware of the fact that the Inuzuka was straining to hear his reply. "You're smart enough for it, and you're good under pressure. If you weren't, I'd be dead a few times over." He said the last bit a little more loudly than he usually would, but wanted to make sure the Inuzuka caught it.

"I - you're not - that isn't -" she stumbled over her own words, panic on her features. "You wouldn't have been in trouble in the first place if I'd followed orders,  _remember?" s_ he hissed, eyes darting around, and he huffed out a laugh.

"Maybe, but then the rest of your unit would be dead if you had, so it all evens out."

So he was changing the narrative a little to paint her in a better light - so what? Their eavesdropper gasped and Shikamaru smirked. Too easy.

He led her into his office and sat her on the couch. "Just a second, I'll have my assistant pull the paperwork."

By the end of the day he'd bullied her into signing the contract that declared her his apprentice and pushed her out of his office just in time to make room for Ino to barge in. Apparently, he'd be getting no work done that day.

"You idiot!" she hissed at him and he slouched down and sighed.

"What did I do now?"

"You should have waited for me to tell you what I found out about her before taking her on as an apprentice. Ugh, you have no idea the shitstorm you've probably caused."

He straightened and frowned at her. "What do you mean?" He jumped when she slapped a folder down in front of him.

"I looked into why the jounin who tested her gave her such a harsh review. Shikamaru, somebody  _bribed_ him to do it. They didn't want her moving up in the ranks and drawing attention to herself." He stared at her and then slowly opened the file, looking over the information she'd compiled in the past month.

"Well, shit," he said and she nodded in agreement from where she was sitting across from him, legs crossed and looking just as put together as she always did.

"Would you have made her your apprentice if you knew?" she asked in a casual voice that meant she would have  _opinions_ on whatever his answer was.

"Yes," he said without having to think about it, then grimaced. "Though I would have taken care of this situation first. What a drag."

She smiled at him and leaned forward. "Huh, just when I think you're nothing but a lazy, unmotivated, apathetic jerk -" he sighed and turned his eyes to the ceiling, "- you surprise me. You're a good guy, you know?"

Before he could reply, she grabbed the folder and swept from the room. "You're welcome!" she called over her shoulder and he buried his face in his hands. Women.

That night he suffered through the identical smug expressions on Shikadai and Temari's faces that they always wore after they managed to pull one over on him.

"You could have just told me outright you thought I needed to take her on," he mumbled and Shikadai shrugged while Temari scoffed.

"Please, you never do something because somebody else wants you to. The only way to get you to take it seriously was to activate your caveman gene. Me big man. Me save poor girl from terrible fate." Temari said, lowering her voice and holding her arms out to the side for her caveman impression.

Shikadai smirked. Shikamaru sighed.

The next morning he wasn't even sure why he was surprised to see that a crowd of people had shown up to watch Hakun's 'assessment.' A Nara losing his temper was a thing to see, apparently. Of course, Naruto was there with his family, holding a bag of popcorn of all things and chattering at Kiba and Akamaru.

Kozue had shown up and he took in the two blonde women with eyes that matched her own standing with her. One was obviously her mother, the other her sister. Standing at their backs was a large man who could only be her Akimichi in-law. He ignored her when she tried to catch his eye, not wanting to be convinced to go easy on the man.

He wasn't sure he could be. He remembered the welt and bruise he'd seen and felt his aura darken. In response, the shinobi around him went silent. Shikamaru put his hands in his pockets and moved to stand in the middle of the training field, raising his eyebrow at Hakun until the other jounin joined him.

"Nara-sama -" he started, but Shikamaru cut him off.

"I'll give you first crack at me," he said around a yawn, not removing his hands from his pockets.

Hakun swallowed, apparently seeing that there was no getting out of the situation. Then he made a few hand signs and Shikamaru almost casually stepped out of the line of fire that was sent his way. Then, he cracked his neck and removed his own hands from his pockets.

"Alright then," he said in a bored tone even though his veins were full of ice again. "Let's get started."

By the time Hakun was taken off the field on a stretcher, one thing had been made clear to the citizens of Konoha: don't mess with Takahani Kozue, or you'd have an angry Nara beating you into unconsciousness.

When Kozue darted over to him, hands fluttering in a way that he knew meant she wanted to fuss, he patted her on the head, causing her to squeak and slap at his hand.

"Shikamaru-shishou," she said a little shyly. "Were you hurt at all?"

"Nah. I'm fine." He turned his attention to her family, who had joined them.

"Um. This is my mom, Takahani Aiko, and my sister and her husband, Izuna and Sachio Akimichi. This is my, um, teacher, Nara Shikamaru-sama," she said, turning bright red at the words.

Aiko narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms over her chest. "Nara-sama," she said in a tone that really meant  _fuck you._

He rubbed the back of his head, uncomfortable. He couldn't exactly blame her for being angry at him for her daughter's troubles. He blamed himself, too.

"Ah, it's nice to meet you. Actually, Takahani-san, I was hoping I could speak with you and Kozue about something that recently came to my attention." He raised an eyebrow when he saw that she had an identical  _oh shit_ face to her daughter's.

Kozue and Aiko sat across from him in the private tea room he'd reserved and he studied them from where he was slouched over a cup of tea. Kozue got most of her looks from her mother, including her slightly rounded face, upturned freckled nose, and eyes. Her hair was darker by a few shades and finer, but there was still no mistaking that they were mother and daughter.

"What did you need to talk to me about, Nara-sama?" Aiko said politely when he was done yawning.

"Mm. Well, the fact that Kozue's father is a council member of the Aburame clan, for starters." Both women froze and Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at his apprentice.

"Huh, I thought you didn't know, based on the contracts my informer unearthed," he said and Aiko turned her head to gape at Kozue.

"You - you knew?" she whispered and Kozue cringed.

"Um. Yes."

"Since when?" Aiko asked, face crumpling.

"Since I was...seven, I guess?" She shifted uncomfortably under Aiko's tear-filled gaze. "You told me when you were drunk once. I wasn't supposed to come home - we were staying with Auntie for the weekend. Anyway, I had forgotten something and stopped by...and you were...and then you..."

"Oh," Aiko said in a hollow voice. "I see."

"I knew that you could get into trouble if anybody found out you'd told me, since they made you sign the contract, so I just, never mentioned it," she rushed to say.

"What do you mean, they  _made_ you sign it?" Shikamaru asked in a sharp voice and Aiko winced.

"No offense, Nara-sama, but I don't think this is any of your business," she said in a stiff tone and Kozue cringed and looked down at the table.

"Actually, it is. Since he'll probably come crawling out of the woodwork to make some claim on my new apprentice in order to force political favors." Aiko and Kozue both blinked at him owlishly, and he sighed.

"So now might be a good time to tell me everything," he pressed.

"Right," Aiko said, then more firmly, "Right. After Izuma's father died, I was...lonely. I started seeing a shinobi from a prominent clan. He was the second son and I guess I thought...well, I don't know what I thought. After we'd been dating for a year, his brother died, and suddenly he was the heir to the council seat and was expected to take over the marriage contract his brother held. I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later."

She looked down and took a sip of her tea. "I was young and stupid, I suppose. I thought when I told him, he'd...I don't know, say to hell with his duties and come back."

Shikamaru didn't say anything, but he did glance over at his apprentice, whose lips were pressed together into a thin line.

"Anyway," Aiko continued. "He showed up the next day, alright, but not with his bags and a ring. He had a contract offering me a large sum of money in exchange for my silence."

At this point she turned her eyes up to Shikamaru, daring him to judge her. "I wasn't going to sign it, but he said...well, he said that if I didn't, his clan would break their contracts with my father, who owned the shop at the time. It would have put us out of business. So I agreed to whatever he wanted. Except for one thing." She took a deep breath. "I refused to terminate the pregnancy."

Kozue jolted. It looked like she'd hadn't known that part. "I promised him that nobody would ever know her parentage and he could take it or leave it."

Shikamaru sipped his tea as they all took a moment to let the information sink in.

"Shikamaru-shishou, maybe you should break the apprenticeship contract," Kozue said. "I don't want to cause problems for you -"

"Why did you decide to become a kunoichi?"

She blinked at him but answered. "I told you, I wanted to prove I could do it."

"Prove it to whom?" She looked away and he nodded. "That's what I thought. If you've known who your father is and what he did since you were seven, you must have been trying to prove it to him."

"He threw me away," Kozue said in a shaky voice. "I just...I wanted to prove that just because I didn't fit his clan's expectations didn't mean I couldn't be..."

Shikamaru sighed. "I know. And now, you're the apprentice of the head of the Nara clan and advisor to the Hokage. I'd say that's a pretty good way to thumb your nose at them. Don't look so down, I have a plan. Aiko, I'm going to need you to fill out some paperwork for me," he said and quirked his lips up when Kozue offered him a tentative smile.

000

Shikamaru discovered that Kozue had not been lying about how completely abysmal she was at the physical aspects of being a shinobi. Her kunai barely hit the targets, she was more likely to punch herself than him when they sparred, and she was constantly tripping over herself.

They spent an afternoon in the hospital after she somehow dropped a kunai on her foot. She dropped a kunai. On her  _foot._

He just didn't understand it. She was in fairly good shape - she told him that she ran and did body weight exercises she'd found in a book. Her control of her body was just...not there.

Finally, three weeks after he'd taken her on as an apprentice and ended up snapping at her that morning when she'd missed the target - again - he gave into desperation. Remembering the way she'd apologized and then practically ran from the training field, probably to go cry somewhere alone and convince herself she was a crap kunoichi, he forced himself to enter the jounin lounge. Hands in his pockets, he slouched over to where Lee was enthusiastically talking at Tenten, who was sharpening an alarmingly large pile of weapons.

Lee was not only incredibly knowledgeable in the art of physical training, but he had also taught two genin teams and one apprentice since becoming a jounin. Shikamaru had never actually taken a student before. Mostly because he was an intelligent person.

"Shikamaru!" Lee beamed up at him and Shikamaru tipped his chin at him before sitting in a chair next to Tenten.

"Yo, Lee," he said, then decided to just jump in, since any subtlety would be lost on the man, anyway. "I was wondering if I could take you to lunch - I have a problem I need your help with."

Lee stared at him and Shikamaru scowled when his eyes filled with tears.

"You, the most intelligent shinobi in the Elemental Nations -" okay, that seemed like an exaggeration, but Shikamaru would roll with it - "are asking  _me_ for help?" He stood, his eyes glinting with an inner fire as his intense feelings sparked a spontaneous genjutsu. "My friend! I will do everything in my power to assist you in -"

Shikamaru stood and grabbed his arm, ignoring Tenten's snickering. "Yes, alright, fine. Let's go. How do you feel about hotpot?"

"I love hotpot!" Lee said fiercely as he followed him out of the lounge.

Lee listened with uncharacteristic solemnity while Shikamaru explained the situation over lunch. "I see," he said when Shikamaru had finished. "Your student's natural ability does not lean towards the physical, and you wish to know how to help her overcome the Difficulties of Youth!"

By the end of the sentence he was back to his usual volume and had stood quickly, sending their table and the remainder of their lunch flying. "Your unwavering, burning love for your student has inspired me!"

Shikamaru groaned put his head in his hands when his proclamation garnered shocked and appalled looks. That was not a rumor he needed flying around. "Yes, yes, sit down," he hissed.

"What brave Kozue-san needs is to teach her body to respond without thought through repetition and the overcoming of obstacles," Lee said and beamed at him. Shikamaru took some time to parse through his words.

"So...drills and...obstacle courses?" Shikamaru said slowly while his shadows slithered across the ground to pick up the table and broken crockery on the floor.

"As always, you get to the heart of the matter. I have worked with many who must push their bodies to obey them. Fear not, I will meet you and your apprentice at dawn tomorrow and show you the way! I must prepare - I will see you tomorrow at training grounds one."

Shikamaru was left with the bill, disapproving stares, and a creeping sense of horror when his brain caught up with what Lee had just said. Nothing he hadn't expected when he sought the man out, really. Why had he decided to take on a student, again?

The next morning he moped out of his house, unable to quite believe he had left his bed before daybreak when he didn't have a mission or emergency. Kozue met him at the Nara gates with a to-go cup of tea and a nervous expression.

He'd simply sent her a message yesterday telling her they'd be meeting for special training, so she had no idea what to expect. She spent the walk fidgeting next to him, probably still upset about the way yesterday's session had ended. He was too tired to form any sentences, though, instead settling for taking small, grumpy sips of tea.

When they entered training grounds one they both stopped and stared at the very impressive obstacle course that Shikamaru was positive hadn't been there yesterday. He groaned - no way was he not getting blamed for this.

Before Kozue could comment a green blur appeared before them. "Dynamic entry!"

As a wide-eyed Kozue exchanged introductions with Lee, Shikamaru began going through the list of things he had to do that day in his head.

"...and I will now be training you in combat and helping you increase your physical prowess!" Lee was finishing his speech just as Shikamaru finished his tea.

"Oh," Kozue said in a small voice. "I see."

Both shinobi stopped and stared at her and Shikamaru could have kicked himself when he caught her downtrodden expression. She thought he'd gotten tired of her and foisted her off onto somebody else for training.

"Thanks for showing us some drills to help in her training, Lee," Shikamaru said in a lazy drawl.

"You - you're staying?" Kozue asked, eyes wide and carefully hopeful.

Well, he hadn't been planning on it, but now... "You're my student, aren't you?" he grumped and twitched when both she and Lee beamed at him. He began looking around for a nice tree to sit under but was derailed when Lee grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the training posts.

"So youthful! Only a sensei of your impeccable character would participate in his student's lessons so he could better assist her in achieving her dreams!"

"Now wait a minute -" Shikamaru futilely tried to pull away.

"You- you're going to train with me?" Kozue's soft voice, full of admiration, had him slumping in defeat and ceasing his struggles.

"...Maybe just for today."

From the corner of his eye, he saw what looked like a smug expression cross Lee's face. There was no way he could have set Shikamaru up for a morning of intense exercise...could he?

Later, while he struggled over a wall while Lee ran literal circles around him yelling encouragements, he cursed himself for his decision to take on an apprentice. Hadn't he always told Naruto a student would be too much work?

He pulled Kozue out of the mud pit for the fourth time that morning - they were both hopelessly covered in the stuff - and sternly told his heart not to melt when she beamed up at him, unconcerned with the grit in her teeth and the clay smeared into her hair. Dammit. He couldn't even stay mad at her for longer than ten minutes.

The next day he wasn't even surprised when a crowd of people showed up to watch Nara Shikamaru get mud smeared into his hair by an over-enthusiastic Rock Lee. Naruto waved at them, beaming, from where he was standing next to Temari with yet another bag of popcorn. Who eats popcorn before noon, anyway? He sighed when Kozue waved back shyly.

So. Troublesome.

000

When Aburame Shintaro showed up in his office three days later, Shikamaru just waved him in, having expected it.

"Aburame-san, how are you?" he asked, keeping his posture relaxed while he studied the man.

He didn't see much of him in Kozue, though it was difficult to tell with the glasses and high collar. The hair color, at least, was familiar.

"I am well, Nara-sama. I was wondering if you have time to speak with me regarding a sensitive subject." Shikamaru kept his face bland, but let him see a spark of interest.

"Sure."

"Fourteen years ago, I was seeing a civilian woman casually. I had made it clear that we would not be going anywhere in our relationship. Unknown to me, she began to plot ways to keep me tied to her..." Shikamaru listened with a neutral expression while Shintaro tried to convince him that Aiko, a civilian woman, had attempted to trap him in marriage by purposefully becoming pregnant with his child and then blackmailed him into giving her hush money.

"...it has recently come to my attention that this child is now your apprentice. I admit, I misstepped when I allowed her mother to keep us separated after I refused to break off my existing marriage contract. I believe she did this to punish me. I would like to ask your assistance in establishing a relationship with Kozue-san now."

Shikamaru hummed and tapped his fingers on top of a folder lying in front of him that he'd pulled out when his assistant told him who was waiting outside his office requesting an audience. "That's an interesting story, Aburame-san. Especially since Aiko-san gave me a much different version of events."

The man stiffened minutely. "Oh?"

"Mmhmm. According to her, the pregnancy was an accident and you coerced her into signing a contract to remain silent using threats against the welfare of her family's business. It was all she could do to keep you from forcing a termination of the pregnancy."

"And you believe this woman over myself?" Shikamaru just shrugged, then casually opened a folder and pulled out a written and signed statement.

"Well, she did sign a statement with the understanding that, if you refuted her claim, she would be subject to a mind walk by a Yamanaka to see whose story is true."

The man placed the statement on the desk with too much calm after reading through it. "You do realize I could simply demand a blood test and force Kozue's entry into the Aburame clan. I had honestly hoped to get her to agree to it on her own instead of putting her through something so trying."

Shikamaru let a slow, lazy grin spread on his face. "I thought you might say that, Aburame-san. Which is why I prepared this."

He pulled another document from the folder and held it out to the man. "I haven't filed it yet, but I will if I have to. As her teacher, I have the right."

Shintaro inhaled deeply. "A restraining order? Built on claims of...past attempts to harm her person and her career? On what basis do you make these claims?" Shikamaru could tell how angry he was by the monotone of his voice.

"As I said, Aiko-san has signed a statement that says you tried to force her into an abortion years ago."

"Nobody would claim that means I want her dead now," he said stiffly.

"Hmm, perhaps not. But what about the jounin you bribed to stop her career in its tracks with a report downplaying her skills?" Shikamaru set another statement in front of the man, who wasn't moving.  _Checkmate,_ he thought to himself.

"You must have been worried that somebody might look too closely at her if she rose in the ranks, hmm? I doubt your wife even knows she exists. I suppose revealing that she's your daughter now is worth the shame if it gives you some power over Nara Shikamaru's apprentice."

"I think it would be in your best interests to let this go," Shikamaru continued as the man stared at the proof of his crimes. "Naruto-sama won't take this lightly. Even if you do somehow manage to get away with a slap on the wrist, you should know," Shikamaru leaned back and wove his fingers together before resting his hands on his stomach, the picture of nonchalance, "that I'll take any attempts on my student's life, freedom, mental stability or career very, very personally, Aburame-san."

Shintaro wasn't a stupid man, so he stood and bowed. "I understand, Nara-sama. Let us consider the matter closed."

000

What Kozue lacked in physical prowess she made up for in the mental arena. His office, once full of stacks of disorganized papers that had two categories: done and not done, was now pristine. He had an inbox that always had the most urgent work placed at the top. All of his paperwork was organized by type with little colored tabs. Where his signature was required Kozue would place little arrow-shaped sticky notes pointing at the line.

He had taken to talking through his less classified projects with her and was pleasantly surprised by how well she took to diplomatic and political intrigue and strategy. Six months into the apprenticeship she had started reading through his paperwork and providing succinct, thoughtful summaries of reports. Sometimes she even made hesitant little suggestions on how he should proceed. He always encouraged this by asking questions and looking interested, even if he didn't agree. Which happened more often than not at first, simply because she didn't have the experience and background knowledge she needed to understand the complexity of the issues he and Naruto faced every day. That would come in time.

At Temari's insistence, Kozue would come to dinner at their house every other week or so. She and Shikadai barely even made eye contact. Kozue because she seemed to think his son was a bit of an asshole, which, to be fair, he hadn't exactly shown himself at his best in her presence yet. She never said anything, but it was obvious to Shikamaru, who knew her tells. Shikadai was still embarrassed about how he had treated her and was smart enough to see that he made her uncomfortable.

Finally, Shikamaru resorted to what he almost always did when faced with complex social issues. He threw the Uzumakis at it. The next dinner he invited Kozue to he made sure Naruto, Hinata, Boruto, and Himawari were present, as well. Boruto had immediately recognized her as "the girl who kicked Shikadai's ass - butt!, sorry mom!" and he and Himawari had tugged her to sit between them. Kozue was shy at first, unsure what to do with herself under the attention of the Uzumaki children, but eventually loosened up under their combined charm.

Shikamaru realized with a start that he'd never actually seen her with people her age before. Did she have friends? How did he not know the answer to that after being her teacher for six months? She spent over forty hours a week with him, after all. Temari nudged him and gave him a look that clearly conveyed  _whatever you're brooding about stop it right now you're annoying me._

He sighed and wrapped an arm around her, watching as Boruto somehow managed to pull both Shikadai and Kozue into a conversation about video games. Twenty minutes later Shikadai was staring down at the game in Kozue's hands in shock. She'd beaten his high score. Shikamaru sent his son a smug look - yes, his apprentice really was just that amazing.

000

Kozue improved under the training regime Lee put together for her, but she was never going to be as deadly as Shikamaru. That was fine - he could already see she would end up in an advisory role, probably heavily focused on diplomacy. Naruto was already encouraging her to speak up when he swung by Shikamaru's office to complain loudly about whatever diplomatic tensions had arisen that week. He couldn't help but feel proud as she started to lose her hesitance and gain confidence in herself.

He had known, of course, that people would figure out his soft spot for the girl and try to use it against him. What he hadn't expected was an assassination attempt to happen while she was inside the village. He realized he had become too complacent when his dinner was interrupted by ANBU seven months into her apprenticeship.

"Takahani Kozue has been attacked. The Hokage asks that you meet him at the hospital immediately."

Temari had shot him an alarmed look and Shikadai's hand had tightened on his chopsticks until one snapped. Though their relationship was still strained, his son had become rather fond of Kozue, even if his pride kept him from showing it.

"Thank you," Shikamaru said, setting his napkin on the table and rising with deliberate movements. He held onto his control all the way to the hospital and up until he saw Naruto talking to an officer from the Military Police Force with a serious expression. He caught sight of Shikamaru and waved him over.

"Shikamaru. Kozue was attacked in her apartment this evening. She was hurt badly - a sword to the stomach - but she'll be fine."

"Who," he managed to grit out and the officer Naruto had been speaking to edged away from him.

Naruto shook his head. "We aren't sure. Kozue blew up her kitchen in her attempt to fight them off, alerting nearby officers that something was wrong. When they arrived there were two figures fleeing the scene. They used mostly water attacks, from what we can see, so possibly foreign."

Shikamaru breathed deeply. "So they got away," he finally said and Naruto's blue eyes looked at him mournfully.

"Yes -"

"Permission to put together a team and retrieve."

Naruto blinked at him before his expression went shrewd. "I don't know if that's a good idea, Shikamaru. I'll send a team, but maybe you shouldn't -"

"Naruto. If it were Himawari, you'd want to go." Naruto didn't bother to point out that Kozue wasn't his daughter. Instead, he narrowed his eyes.

"Fine. Permission granted. But remember our policy - we always try to take them alive."

Shikamaru didn't dignify that with an answer. He was already disappearing in a swirl of leaves. Naruto probably hadn't meant for him to go straight to Hinata and pull her away from the dinner she was making, but, well, she and her genin team were still the best tracking team in the village. Shino, Kiba, and Akamaru were next and when he told them in clipped sentences what they were doing, they immediately nodded.

The amount of blood spread on Kozue's mother's now-destroyed apartment floor had Shikamaru clenching his fists and turning away. The state of the kitchen had Kiba whistling lowly. "Your girl did this?"

Shikamaru grunted his affirmation while Kiba and Akamaru began scenting the area.

"Here I thought she was hopeless at combat," he said. "Girl's got fight in her, that's for sure."

Shikamaru took in the overturned furniture and bloody handprints on the wall and couldn't help but agree.

When they finally caught up to the three assassins, Shikamaru found himself holding two of them against a tree, shadows squeezing their bodies until the creak of bones could be heard over their screams.

"Shikamaru, buddy, you gotta stop or you'll kill them," Kiba said. At that moment, all he could think was  _fuck policy, fuck Naruto's bleeding heart, he was going to -_

"Shikamaru-kun," a soft voice said and then Hinata was standing in front of him, cupping his face in soft hands and looking up at him with an earnest expression. "Please, you are better than this. Let them go."

"I'm not," he gritted out, then, "You saw the apartment, you saw what they -"

"I know," she said softly. "But you have to be better than they are."

"For Naruto? For his peace?" he snapped and she gave him a soft, understanding smile.

"No. For Kozue, for a better future for her and for Shikadai and all our children." Shikamaru sighed and released his hold on his shadows.

The two nin fell to their knees, wheezing and probably in immense pain. "Alright," he said, suddenly very tired. "Alright."

Naruto's obvious relief when they showed up with three prisoners and no dead bodies made Shikamaru feel uncharacteristic anger for his friend and he stomped past him and into Kozue's room, closing the door in his Hokage's face when he tried to follow. Yeah, he knew he was being unfair, but he had really, really wanted to kill those men.

It hadn't ended there. Four months later, she was kidnapped for the first time. They had left a lock of her hair and a list of demands in exchange for her return. By the time Shikamaru had shown up, ready to burn their hideout to the ground and salt the ashes, Kozue was sitting cross-legged in front of the structure, three women and two men tied up and passed out cold next to her.

"Hey, shishou." She struggled to her feet. "I was just about to try and figure out which direction home was in," she said a little sheepishly, looking around the rocky beach in Wave she'd been taken to. The sky was covered in clouds, blocking the sun, so he could see how she'd be confused about where she was.

He sighed and tugged her into a hug, ignoring the silent ANBU at his back. "I should have known you'd have it taken care of by the time I got here," he grumbled.

"Ah...sorry for the trouble. I had to wait until they were distracted to untie myself and turn on the gas." When he pulled back and raised an eyebrow she shrugged. "They had stuffed me into a room with a draft, so I was fine if I kept my nose up against the crack in the wall. Uh. Maybe don't light any fires around here for a bit?"

How many of her peers would think of something so simple to take out their enemies? Most of them would just try and beat them up or come up with a convoluted escape plan. She had even kept them all alive. He'd been so worried about her the last few days that he hadn't slept more than a few hours, and with her frankly impressive talent for getting out of ropes and the simple act of opening a gasline, she'd freed herself without a scratch.

He was never taking on another apprentice on again.

The second time she was kidnapped he wasn't even there. She had gone to a village to discuss a request for aid. She'd been assigned a chunin team, lead by Shikadai, for protection, since she still wasn't much of a fighter. They decided the only way to get the medical aid that they desperately needed was to hold Nara Shikamaru's apprentice hostage. Shikadai had told him later, scowl firmly in place, that he'd come up with a flawless plan to infiltrate the camp and free her.

It would have worked just fine, too, if she hadn't refused to leave with them. She'd used her time as a hostage to come up with a deal that involved fishing rights for the upper echelon of Fire Country from a lake that housed a rare breed of salmon in exchange for the aide they requested. From the way Kozue refused to speak to Shikadai for three months outside of official business, Shikamaru deduced that he hadn't taken the revelation well that all the work he'd put into her rescue was unneeded.

The third time, she had just turned sixteen and they were in Kiri for the chunin exams. Three months before, Naruto had casually asked when she planned on taking the exams to become a chunin. Shikamaru and Kozue had both given him blank looks. He'd gaped at them and thrown his hands in the air.

"Please tell me you've at least been thinking about this."

"Why? She doesn't need to be a chunin to do my paperwork," Shikamaru had said and Kozue had rolled her eyes but not argued the point.

"Uh, maybe because our future Head of Diplomatic Relations can't be a  _genin?"_ Kozue had gaped at Naruto and Shikamaru had sighed.

"Fine, fine. Do you have a team in mind?" Naruto had beamed, Kozue had sputtered at them, and in the end, she'd ended up taking the exams with Himawari's genin team.

One of them had been injured and couldn't participate so they needed a third. She hadn't been concerned with the fact that she was older than most of the genin, and in fact was so quiet about the whole thing that Shikamaru had finally given in and asked how she felt about it.

"I...I never thought I'd have the chance to take them. So I suppose, I'm very happy."

She'd then pulled him into one of their rare hugs - usually reserved for after they'd lived through life-threatening situations or when Kozue cried. Ugh, he hated it when she cried, it made something in his chest squeeze uncomfortably while he futilely looked around for somebody to kill. He was so glad Shikadai was a boy.

Shikamaru had gone with her, acting as Konoha's representative, and brought Shikadai and his team, who were jounin by then, as his escort. She'd passed, mostly relying on strategy rather than brute force or fancy jutsu, though Lee's training regime had helped her improve immensely over the last year and a half.

She and Himawari were taken right out of their shared room the night before they were supposed to return home by a group of scientists who had found some of Orochimaru's old research on bloodline limits and wanted to continue his legacy. Shikamaru had half expected her to once again be sitting outside their base with Himawari, waiting for their rescue team to show up and pick up her unconscious foes. Shikadai had muttered something about how she had better not be drinking tea with the enemy this time.

Instead, they found the two girls strapped down on exam tables, Himawari unharmed but drugged into a deep sleep and Kozue in such rough shape they weren't sure whether she'd live until they got her back to Kiri and medical attention.

That time, the kidnappers had been after Himawari and taken Kozue along to use as a 'control' for some experiment. Shikamaru and Shikadai had rooted out those involved in the kidnapping - including a few Kiri nobles- with extreme prejudice. By the time Naruto arrived, uncharacteristically angry, they had rounded up the perpetrators.

Kozue didn't wake up for two weeks from whatever they'd done to her, though Sakura, who Naruto had brought along, assured them that she'd be fine. Shikadai had, interestingly enough, spent the time he wasn't out terrorizing possible suspects playing video games in the general vicinity of her hospital room.

"Are all students this troublesome?" Shikamaru grumbled to Lee after they returned to Konoha, who he'd taken to drinking a beer with to discuss the 'joys' of teaching with every month or so.

"The trials and tribulations of Youth are not to be taken lightly," he replied in a somber tone, and Shikamaru thunked his head down on the bar. He'd take that as a 'yes.'

Shikamaru had thought assassination attempts and kidnappings were stressful, but it was nothing compared to the stress of Kozue suddenly deciding to take notice of the opposite sex.

Shikamaru found himself glaring off chunin and the occasional jounin when their eyes lingered too long on her after she'd smiled at them. The day he'd walked into a bar to have a drink with Ino and Chouji and seen her kissing a tokubetsu jounin name Ryu he'd almost had a heart attack.

Chouji had dragged him out before he could strangle the man while Ino laughed hysterically at his horrified expression. When Ryu broke her heart a month later by dumping her for a buxom blonde that worked at the missions desk, he'd mysteriously found himself with a six-month stint in an outpost in the far corner of Wind Country.

The next day Kozue brought Shikamaru a cup of his favorite tea and kissed his cheek, but they never actually spoke about it out loud.

000

When Shikamaru was the one that was captured, Naruto had forbidden anybody from trying to retrieve him. Shikamaru had known that was the decision he would make - in fact he had written the protocol for this particular situation. It wasn't worth inciting a war by crossing into the borders of the northern tribes, after all.

Shikadai and Kozue snuck out of the village, tramped across the borders of the Elemental Nations into the north, and freed him. They left a crater where the fort he'd been held at had once been, a big glaring  _fuck you_ to the leaders of the tribes who were responsible for the situation.

Despite the pain from his torture wounds, he couldn't help but smile at his rescuers. "This feels familiar," he said when they reached the Land of Rivers and Kozue went about making a poultice for his wounds as Shikadai skinned a few rabbits.

"Yeah, well, I requested quail but I guess your son isn't as good of a hunter as you are," she said with forced lightness while she gently cleaned a nasty gash in his side.

"Hey," Shikadai said mildly from where he was pretending he wasn't studying Shikamaru's wounds with troubled eyes.

He'd grown into a fine young man if Shikamaru's opinion could be trusted. He was tall and slim, as his clan tended to be, and most people agreed that his strength now rivaled Shikamaru's and would soon surpass it.

"You should have left me," Shikamaru said a little later after they'd eaten.

"No," Shikadai said.

"Never," Kozue said firmly, and their eyes met over where Shikamaru was lying on his bedroll before skittering away into opposite directions.

"Naruto would have worked his magic and figured out a way to get me out of it withouta diplomatic incident," he grumbled.

Kozue smiled at him, but it didn't reach her eyes. "We've all seen the reports of how prisoners are treated by the northerners. I wasn't leaving you with them," she finally said in a soft voice. "I'd rather go back to the Corps than do that."

"Now stop wasting our time saying stupid things," Shikadai grumbled and Shikamaru realized this might be the first time he'd ever seen his apprentice and son actively agree on something.

Huh, maybe he should have gotten himself captured sooner. He winced when Kozue checked one of his bandages. Eh, maybe not.

000

The council forced Naruto to demote Kozue and Shikadai a full rank after their blatant show of insubordination, though the way he'd beamed at them as he assigned them four months of D-ranked missions sort of took the sting out of it.

For their parts, they seemed more horrified at having to spend so much time in each other's company weeding gardens and carrying groceries than the loss in rank. Neither of them cared much about titles, after all, outside of Shikadai's annoyance whenever Boruto brought up the difference in their ranks.

Kozue was convinced that Shikadai still thought of her as the talentless genin who had almost gotten his father killed. Shikadai assumed Kozue didn't like him because of his asshole behavior the first few times they interacted. Not to mention she baffled him just as much as she did Shikamaru with her sweet-as-pie demeanor that covered a core of stubborn steel and sharp intelligence.

Shikadai just didn't know what to do with her, and it made him act uncharacteristically awkward around her. Temari thought it was hilarious. Shikamaru just thought it was a pain.

After the first few weeks, both Kozue and Shikadai had stopped grumbling about their punishment. Shikamaru just breathed out a sigh of relief and piled more work on his apprentice. He'd had to fend off two other departments when they tried to steal  _his_ student away - they could go to the Corps and find their own hidden genius, his was busy.

A week later Naruto called him in and demanded that he let Kozue 'spread her wings' or something equally ridiculous. Despite the uncharacteristic fuss Shikamaru put up about it, Naruto approved her for ten hours a week working in Intelligence and another ten training under a retired diplomat. Shikamaru gave him the silent treatment for a week, even if he could possibly see the man's point.

Before he knew it, the six months had flown by, Shikadai and Kozue's ranks had been restored to jounin and chunin respectively, and he had to listen to all the talk about how Kozue was a 'rising star' in Diplomacy along with making waves in Intelligence. As far as Shikamaru was concerned, she'd been a star for years - only an idiot wouldn't have noticed. Since most people were idiots, he shouldn't be surprised they were only now catching on.

Her promotion to tokubetsu jounin seemed to come out of nowhere, though maybe it shouldn't have.

"What - are you sure she's ready for that?" Shikamaru asked Naruto after staring at him in shock for a few minutes.

Naruto rolled his eyes at him. "Gods, Shikamaru, you're such a mother hen. Yes, she's ready. She's  _been ready,_ but I've been holding off because I didn't think  _you_ were ready."

Shikamaru bristled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I meanthat you almost had the whole floor on anti-anxiety meds when I sent her to work part-time in Diplomacy, you were such a grouch. But I can't hold her career back because you're emotionally dependent on your apprentice," Naruto said bluntly.

Shikamaru hated him.

"If you really think I'm not ready, I'll turn down the promotion, shishou," she said in a soft voice a week later while they were going through paperwork in his office.

He frowned and looked up at her, taking in her downcast expression and gloomy air with a wince. Okay, maybe he'd been a little obvious in his complete disgruntlement with her promotion.

At seventeen, she had mostly gained the self-esteem she had lacked when they first met, but he still held emotional power over her that most people didn't. He took in her soft-looking round face and the hair that was pulled back into its customary ponytail. Her eyes were kind but held a hint of steel that they hadn't at the age of fourteen. She wore a light green battle kimono that worked well both in a diplomatic meeting and in combat situations with dark brown pants on under it. He realized suddenly that she was no longer a child. Despite him wishing it otherwise, she was a woman.

With a sigh he stood and walked around his desk, then knelt next to her, taking both of her hands in his own. He met her surprised gaze and gave a sardonic smile.

"Nah, you're ready. I'm just feeling a little left behind, I suppose." He ignored her shocked intake of breath. "You're a damn fine kunoichi, Kozue-chan. I'm proud that you were my student."

To his surprise, she stood and tugged him up as well, then threw her arms around his neck. "I'm still your student," she said fiercely. "I'll  _always_ be your student. I'm so thankful to you."

When she pulled back there were tears in her eyes. "You believed in me when nobody else did - not even myself. Just because I won't be in here every day managing your paperwork doesn't mean I'm abandoning you. We - we're family, after all."

She was bright red by the end of her speech, and for a moment he just stared at her before allowing a small smile to cross his features. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Yeah. We are."

000

Her first diplomatic assignment took her out of the village for six months. Shikamaru found himself lifting his head to ask her opinion on something more times than he'd like to admit, only to be met with an empty office. Finally, two months after she'd left, Temari had apparently had enough.

She slammed her cup down at the dinner table after downing the sake in it. "Alright, that's it. I cannot stand another moment of your moping. Pull yourself together! It's not like Kozue is never coming back."

"I'm not moping!" Both Shikamaru and Shikadai said at once.

Shikamaru blinked at his son. "Wait - why would you be moping?"

"Uh." Shikadai's gaze darted to the side before going down to his plate and Shikamaru dropped his chopsticks, spattering rice all over himself as he did so.

"Wait - are you -"

"You seriously didn't know that our son has been secretly dating your apprentice for the past four months?" Temari asked in an unimpressed voice, refilling her sake cup and causing both of her family members to wince. She somehow got even scarier when she drank.

Shikamaru stared at her and then turned his gaze to his son, who had suddenly decided to turn all of his attention to his rice.

"Why would you secretly date her?" he finally settled on saying.

"Uh, maybe because the last guy that got his hands on her ended up spending six months at an outpost in the desert with only a geriatric Suna nin and the cacti for company?" Shikadai said, then hunched over when Shikamaru's eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean, got his hands on her? Ino told me they only kissed!"

"This is what I'm talking about," Shikadai grumbled while Temari leaned over and patted Shikamaru on the head.

"Of course she did, she's a good teammate who wanted to preserve your mental he-alth." She hiccuped on the last word and Shikamaru was momentarily distracted by the fact that he could see down her shirt when she leaned over that far. Her cheeks were flushed a fetching red from the alcohol, as well.

"Pathetic," Shikadai grumbled, pulling Shikamaru's attention back to him.

"Wait, does that mean  _you've_ gotten your hands on -" he started and Shikadai's eyes widened in alarm.

"Look at that, time for bed," Temari said, then plopped herself into his lap.

By the time he came up for air, ready to respond to his son's comment, Shikadai was nowhere to be found.

000

Kozue arrived back to the village from her mission with a glowing report from Cloud and a bright smile for Shikamaru. Something in him relaxed when he saw she was unharmed and in good spirits and he left her to reunite with her mother and sister after some judicious hugging and gruff fussing.

He picked up a new hobby for the next few months that he liked to call 'interrupt Shikadai's and Kozue's intimate moments.' Shikadai looked like he was ready to provide proof to the rumors that he was now stronger than his father, but Kozue just sent him exasperated looks while calming his son down with gentle touches. Dinners were now full of narrow-eyed looks exchanged between father and son and pointed comments from Temari about pissing contests.

The stalemate where Shikadai refused to stop dating Kozue and Shikamaru refused to believe they were doing anything other than holding hands came to an end two months before Shikadai's nineteenth birthday.

"Dad, I need grandma's ring."

Shikamaru was pretty sure he'd waited to say that until he was taking a drink of tea on purpose. He sighed and stared at the tea-covered mess he'd made of the reports Kozue had summarized for him that day.

As soon as she'd returned from her mission she'd applied for the job of Assistant to the Advisor of the Esteemed Hokage. It was so obviously a title made up on the spot by Naruto that Shikamaru thought that maybe he hadn't been as outwardly nonchalant about Kozue leaving for six months as he'd assumed.

Shikamaru studied Shikadai, taking in the way he met his eyes steadily and his confident posture. No hesitation, no fear. He meant it.

"I'm going to assume you want it for Kozue," he said in a level voice and Shikadai rolled his eyes.

"Yes, dad, I want the engagement ring for the woman I've been dating for months and have been in love with since I was fifteen. Can we skip the part where you act like a kid whose favorite toy is being taken away?"

Shikamaru scowled. "I'm not -"

"She still loves you best, okay?" Shikadai said and smirked. Brat.

"Fine, I guess it wouldn't be so bad if she joined the clan." He stood and made his way over to a chest of drawers across the room. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more the idea perked him right up. Nara Kozue, daughter of Nara Shikamaru. Hmmm.

"Dad, your smug face is bordering on creepy right now," Shikadai grumbled.

"So disrespectful," Shikamaru said, shoulders slumping even as he pulled out a small, polished box made out of Hashirama wood. He turned it over in his hands, face softening at memories of his own parents.

"I'm glad," he said and turned to hand the box to Shikadai, then reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "My father didn't get to see me marry your mother. There's nothing I want more than to see your wedding."

"Dad," Shikadai mumbled and hugged him. "Don't get ahead of yourself, she hasn't said yes yet." For the first time since he entered the office, he looked nervous.

Shikamaru thought of the way Kozue's hazel eyes softened when they fell on his son and smirked. "Eh, you don't have anything to worry about, trust me."

000

He gave Kozue away at the wedding, even if it caused the wedding planner some operational headaches as he couldn't be in two places at once as the father to the groom  _and_ the bride. He didn't miss the kikaichu - different from the breed Shino used, who was the only Aburame on the invite list that he knew of - that nestled into the folds of Kozue's beautiful kimono, which was Nara green with brown branches growing up from the sleeves. Shikamaru quirked his lips up at her when he saw the orange and white flowers embroidered between the branches.

Shikamaru decided not to begrudge Aburame Shintaro that one thing. After all, what Shikamaru would count as the man's biggest loss was one of his own greatest gains.

000

Three years later, when he held his granddaughter for the first time, he couldn't help but rethink his stance. Maybe having an apprentice wasn't as troublesome as he thought.

Not, he assured himself quickly, that he needed to repeat the experience. A man could only take so much stress in his lifetime.


End file.
